


The Remnant Fic

by wishicouldunreadthat



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-01-23 14:31:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 46,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishicouldunreadthat/pseuds/wishicouldunreadthat
Summary: “I’ve been around for centuries. I know about the mind, the body, and the soul, and the many ways they can all be broken. I’ve been bored for a long time, and all I want to do is have some fun. I want to wreak havoc, even just a little, and you will help me do it: all I need is a body or two.”Summary: Phil remembers these things from an old children’s book series, but never thought they could be real - until he encounters one. When a Remnant appears in their lives, Dan and Phil are helpless to its will. And it’s desperate to toy with them.





	1. Prologue

The winter nights are cold, and our coats aren’t warm enough to fight against it. It isn’t just the temperature, though, that makes it almost unbearable to be outside - it’s the wind. It’s harsh, thin and frozen, like tiny shards of ice piercing through my skin. I slide my ice-cold fingers into the armpits of my coat, letting an uncontrollable shiver tremble through me. Every breath seems to suck those ice shards straight into my throat, and as I breathe out slowly the air around me bubbles like smoke. It’s too cold. Even the blood in my veins feels chilly. I wish we could get inside already.

“Phil?”

I jump, shooting me head to the side. Dan’s giving me a concerned look - his eyebrows have furrowed slightly.

“Are you okay?” he asks me softly as we walk. Within his hands are a couple of Starbucks cups, steaming at the top. I can barely feel the palm of my hands warm up at the thought of their lovely temperature. Dan kindly holds one out to me. “Here - they’re really warm. It’ll help you heat up.”

I smile and take the drink from me, hugging it lovingly within my fingers. “Thanks,” I mutter shyly back. I don’t like to talk too much in this weather - with every second your mouth is open, the cold air seems to invade, spreading chilliness all through your mouth, and, if you’re unlucky enough to breathe in, all down your throat too. It’s dreadfully unpleasant. “We better get inside soon,” I grumble moodily into the collar of my slightly-oversized coat, hiding my cheeky smile. “And I don’t care how much it costs, we’re putting the heating on straight away.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Dan’s mouth fall open, ready to argue - but he shuts it again before any arguing can start. Instead, he simply smiles warmly. Even that sight warms me up inside.

“Okay,” he agrees kindly, saying nothing more. Honestly, I expected more of a fight, but I don’t complain. Maybe it’s the cold - it makes bitterness and coldness between us seem really unappealing.

I don’t mind days like this, even in the cold, as long I have Dan. Like how the day doesn’t start until sunrise, I feel like I’m never truly awake until I’ve seen Dan in the morning. I can’t find a way to explain it. He always seems to make my mood brighten, even at its worst. But that isn’t new - that’s always been the nature of our relationship. He’s like a walking fireplace - no, a sun? I don’t know. He lightens the room whenever he’s in it in every possible way. He lifts my mood the minute I’m with him. He’s a walking ball of light.

Poetry never was my fancy.

Sometimes I feel like I lost my chance with him. Obviously, I’m grateful for the way things are, that I have Dan at all. But I can’t help but think back to the way he used to be with me, back in 2009, when he was all shy and adorable and so,  _so_ youthful. And comparing that Dan to the way he is now, it feels like I’m not as important to him anymore. This sort of separation is inevitable, I already know that: Dan’s channel has been gaining way more attention than mine at an exponential rate, ever since his rebranding, whilst I’m stuck in the mud behind him. Dan is going to carry on along the road to success and he’ll have no choice but to leave me behind. He’s even changed inside since I first met him - he’s cooler, more capable, and fashionable. He’s cool. And me? I’m still that loser emo kid stuck in the past. I’m even thirty.

I grip my Starbucks cup tightly, willing myself to calm down. It’s okay, I tell myself. I still have some time. I won’t lose him just yet.

He was too young back then, anyway. Making on move on him then would have been nothing more than taking advantage. He had to grow up before I could act on anything. It just so happens that by the time he did, it was too late. What we have is a friendship, a solid one. That can never be broken through. This is where the road ends.

My eyes drift along the cracked tiles of the path in front of me, over the top of my cup. The road may have come to an end for me, but we still have time. Night hasn’t fallen yet for us. I can still enjoy my time with Dan. And that’s exactly what I plan to do.

My eyes hits something strange, and I find my body stopping mid-walk. Dan stops beside me a second after and looks round to me.

“Phil?” he asks softly, like always. “What’s up?”

I can’t explain it. I frown at the anomaly. It’s like… this shadow, climbing the wall beside me… it’s like it’s not meant to be there. Maybe it’s the shadow of a person, and I can feel their presence. I should probably get moving again, and hurry on home, but…  _god_ … it feels like it’s  _looking_ at me.

“Phil,” Dan calls again, harsher this time, nudging my shoulder with his cup. “What are you looking at?”

“I don’t know…” I find my voice replying back. Are those cracks in the wall, right in the centre of the shadow? My focus feels drawn to them, like it’s the face.

I shake it off.

“It’s nothing,” I tell Dan, reassuring him. And we continue walking. I keep my eyes flitting to it - to the shadow - as we walk by, feeling a shiver run through me again, but this time it isn’t the cold - it’s more like dread. I shake that away too, having a decidedly long sip of my drink. As we walk past it, the shadow appears to slip away, round the corner and into the alley. I turn my eyes back round to the front and carry on walking.

Dan starts chatting away about something after that, something I’m not quite paying attention to. It’s round the corner that I feel something like a light, chilly breeze run up the back of my coat. My spine straightens as it climbs up, and I try my best to ignore it. It reaches the back of my neck, and strangely, it stops, like it’s settled there, like frozen breath on my flesh.

Then, extraordinarily, it seems to whisper to me.

_“You seem to know what I am,”_ it chuckles, sending a sudden shudder down my whole spine. And then the words are gone, like the wind, and I’m not sure I heard them at all.  _“Try to mention me to your friend and he’ll be dead within a minute.”_

My throat seizes up at the threat and my heart drops into my stomach - what the hell is going on? What is that? I can’t keep myself calm. My blood is racing, heating up, like water set for boiling. My fingers are shaking.

Even so, the voice  _laughs_.

“Phil? Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” I flinch my head round to Dan again, gripping my cup tightly. It no longer feels like it’s warming up the palm of my hand, but rather I’m spreading the cold into it instead. “You’ve been a little out of it since we left Starbucks.”

_“Tell him you’re ill,”_ the voice suggests to me - no _, instructs_ me.  _“And you’ll head straight to bed when you get home.”_

My mouth suddenly feels dry, but I comply.

“I think I’m coming down with something,” I try lying, for some reason desperate to convince him. “I better get an early night tonight. I’ll lie down as soon as we get in.”

Dan’s frown lifts and he shows me a sympathetic smile. “Okay. Finish your hot chocolate quick then, before we get home.”

I force out a gentle laugh and bring the cup to my lips, taking a few nervous mouthfuls one after the other.

_“Good boy,”_ I’m told. I can feel amusement in its tone. I don’t understand why I’m so petrified. I don’t even know what this is, if it’s even real. But, as well as feeling horridly scared, I also feel a strange willingness to comply, like I’m anxious of the consequences, like I even know what they could be. And, even weirder, with this strange petrification, I feel the most unusual urge to keep my mouth tightly closed. And that frightens me.  _“Once that’s done, and you’re alone, I’ll get to work with you.”_ I feel like I can feel its smile: it’s horrid, cruel smile.  _“Don’t worry - you won’t have to do anything at all.”_

By the time we get inside, I’ve gone past shaking - I feel like I’m frozen in fear. Dan takes the empty cup from my hand and wishes me a good night, and I’m desperate to quickly grab his hand and tell him not to leave me. But what good would that do? What would I even tell him, about these strange sensations and noises? And what if something’s really going on, and it will really kill Dan the minute I get his attention?

He slips away before I can say anything, and the urge to cry builds inside me.

_“Room,”_  the voice persists firmly, making me gulp.  _“Now.”_

Unable to do anything else, I find myself complying, walking myself helpless into my room. My heartbeat quickens in fright now, somehow knowing something about my fate. But even if I knew, there’s nothing I can do: I’m frozen, helpless, like a slab of meat on a hook.

The strange voice chuckles and starts to slide around my neck, like it’s reaching its arms around me. I can’t even shiver anymore.

_“Poor little thing,”_ it mocks.  _“Poor helpless little creature. There’s no need to be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.”_

As its arm-like things crawl up my jaw, I find my mouth impulsively locking shut.

At that, it seems to tut.

_“Oh, don’t do that. You should know that won’t stop me.”_ Part of it climbs up the back of my head, as if to cradle it, whilst another part slides up to the corner of my lips.  _“You already know what I am, even if you’re not quite aware of it.”_ I realise I’m holding my breath. I can’t even feel my heartbeat anymore. I can’t feel anything.  _“You know, if you resist, this is going to become very difficult.”_ From the corner, it slides between my lips, begging for entrance. I can feel a part of me telling me not to fight it, and I don’t know why. I feel like, if I do, it will force me open. The voice, maybe noticing this somehow, drops into a purr.  _“Go on… let me inside…”_

Without thinking, without even being able to cry, my lips permissively part.

I feel the something move straight into action and it dives into my mouth, quickly starting to slide down my throat, and I start to choke. I can’t breathe. It’s freezing. It’ll kill me.

No, I think. It won’t kill me. It’ll do much worse than that.

As impossible as it is, as my body falls to its knees and the shadow finally works its way inside me, seeping quickly through my veins, I realise what this thing is. And, as my consciousness slips away beneath it, its name is the last thing I see:

_Remnant._

 


	2. Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been around for centuries. I know about the mind, the body, and the soul, and the many ways they can all be broken. I’ve been bored for a long time, and all I want to do is have some fun. I want to wreak havoc, even just a little, and you will help me do it: all I need is a body or two.”
> 
> Summary: Phil remembers these things from an old children’s book series, but never thought they could be real - until he encounters one. When a Remnant appears in their lives, Dan and Phil are helpless to its will. And it’s desperate to toy with them.

**WN: strong language, hostage/prisoner situation, spiritual possession (see Remnants - Skulduggery Pleasant series), restraint, torture, gore, emotional manipulation, threats of death and mutilation, asphyxiation, asphyxiation (water), knives, blood**

“Phil! Breakfast!”

It’s been a while since we’ve made breakfast for each other, but since Phil fell ill yesterday, I thought it might be a good time to try it again. Besides, I feel partly responsible anyway - I was the one who begged to make a quick visit to Starbucks last night. Maybe I should buy him a thicker coat.

Phil - eventually - stumbles out of his room, looking pale. No, wait, he always does. His eyes lock on me and he shows me a soft, sleepy smile.

“Hey,” he groans, rubbing his eyes as he enters the room. Phil drops himself down onto the sofa and lets out a heavy, satisfied sigh, relaxing into it. “Sorry about yesterday. I think I was little more spooked than anything. I really struggled to sleep.” He shows me a pout and pulls his hands away from his eyes again. “But I think I’m feeling better now.”

I sit down next to him and nudge his plate over to him. “Are you sure? I could make you a cup of tea or something.”

Phil, after taking the plate of a warm bacon sandwich into his hands, waves at me dismissively. “You don’t have to do that. You made me breakfast, and that’s more than enough.”

A smile grows on my face unexpectedly, and I leave it at that. As long as Phil is okay, that’s good enough for me. Besides, I trust him. If something really was wrong, he would tell me.

I dig into my own sandwich happily and we sit in silence for a while. Once we’re done, I take our plates away and bring them to the kitchen.

“So then,” I call back, raising my voice to make sure that Phil hears me. “What got you so spooked last night? I thought, for a minute, you were going to drop your drink.” I let myself giggle. “What, did you see a ghost?”

Phil laughs back. “No, silly. Ghosts aren’t real.”

“Umm, I might disagree with you there.” I joke back - I will never live those horror films down.

“Oh really?” I return to the living room. “I thought you didn’t believe in them.”

I sit back down next to Phil, sighing tiredly. “No, you’re right - I still don’t. It’s just hard to be certain that they  _don’t_  exist, you know? There’s no true way of knowing. Like mermaids.”

Phil groans and pushes himself up from the sofa. “Oh god,  _please_ don’t break my mind at this hour. Save it for the early hours.”

“This  _is_  early!” I cry as he leaves the room.

“The late hours then!”

I smile to myself and drop back down into the sofa. He’s definitely okay.

I spend a while slouched in front of the TV, being idle. After a while, I go take a shower, get dressed, and flop back down on the sofa with my laptop in my lap. As I scroll idly through tumblr, I barely even notice Phil leave. I don’t know how long he’s gone for, but when he comes back, he hurries to his room to put everything away before coming to join me in the living room.

“Where did you go?” I ask him, only half-attentive. “Shopping?”

Phil hums back happily. “Christmas shopping, actually,” he informs me. “I’ve had my eye on something for you for a while. Thought I’d get it before we went together.”

I hum along, agreeing.

The TV plays on dumbly in the background as I keep on scrolling. After a while, Phil joins me with his own laptop, sitting right beside me. It’s quiet - as usual - for quite a long time.

“Dan,” he calls suddenly, getting my attention. “Did you ever read the Skulduggery Pleasant books?”

I frown, turning my head to him. “The what?”

“Skulduggery Pleasant,” Phil repeats calmly. “I read them when I was younger. Didn’t you? They were closer to your time than mine, anyway.”

I shake my head. “Nope. I think I remember you telling me about them, though.” I smile at the thought. “You really enjoyed them.”

Phil turns his head to me and smiles back. “Do you know what Remnants are?”

I consider that deeply. “Umm… I think I can remember. You said they’re something like spirits, right? Like… dark, evil spirits.”

He laughs briefly, as if he couldn’t help himself. “I suppose they are, in the books.” Then Phil turns his smile back to his laptop. “That’s good.”

I feel like there’s something more to that, like an elephant in the room, but I don’t want to ask him. He must have something on his mind, to bring up something so obscure like that. But I trust him. If Phil thought I needed to know, he would tell me. So I relax back into the browsing position and think nothing of it.

Phil soon wraps up his internet browsing for the day and returns to his room, mumbling something about work.

It’s not for another hour that I see him again, popping his head quite suddenly round the door. I turn my head to him, expecting a question from him, but instead his eyes are searching the room.

“Looking for something?” I hum to him, smiling slightly.

Phil hums back, confirming. He soon fixes his eyes on me. “Do we have any chairs round here? Like, small, strong ones? Wood or metal would do.” His mouth slants something, mimicking a pout. “Something with bars or something to tie stuff to.”

I raise an eyebrow with a little daring giggle. “Phil Lester, what are you planning?”

Phil stares at me blankly for a long time, confused. It takes a while for him to catch on. “Oh!” he cries out all of a sudden, eyes widening. “Gross!” I practically snort, helplessly, in laughter. He’s too damn innocent sometimes. “No, you creep - it’s for a video.”

“… a porno?”

“No!”

I chuckle.

Eventually, once I’m done with the teasing for another day, I point him to the dining room chairs on the other side of the room. I don’t even know why we have them, and we always forget that they’re there. We never use them, anyway, not when the sofa is perfect enough.

“Would they be okay?”

Phil studies them briefly, before deciding to take one. He turns back to me, by the door, holding it in his hands, and he shows me a big, excited smile. “This will be perfect.”

As he leaves for his room again, I mutter a quick “Happy to help!” from behind him.

After a nice refreshing lunch by myself (Phil is too busy with his video, apparently), I plan to return to my room to at least pretend like I’m being productive. But, before I even make it to the door, Phil’s voice interrupts me.

“Dan!” he calls. “Can you come here, please?”

I let out a loud groan as I rush to his room.

He stands in the middle of it, smiling, with one hand on the dining chair. “Could you help me out, please? With the video?”

“Sure,” I answer without hesitation - always happy to help. After all, I’ve asked Phil to assist with some very strange scenes for my videos. “What do you want, exactly?”

He steps away from the chair, his hand falling away. “Just sit for me, right here.”

I do as he says.

Phil walks round to the back of me, so I twist my neck trying to follow him.

“What are you filming?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer, seemingly inspecting the back of the chair. For some reason. “What exactly am I helping you with?”

He pauses for another moment before answering, taking my wrists into his hold and bringing them round the back of the chair.

“Do you remember that video you made with me back in 2009?  _How To Befriend Your Favourite Internet Stars,_ or something like that?”

I nod in confirmation - then, after realising he can’t see that, hum instead. My wrists are brought into one hand and I feel something cold press against them.

“It’s a bit like that.” I hear a click, and then another. I presume these are like makeshift handcuffs. “So keep still.”

I straighten my back, obeying. “Okay.”

Phil’s hands leave me and I feel him stand himself up. Tugging briefly on my new restraints, I realise they seem to be attached to the chair itself.

“You trust me,” Phil hums from behind me. “Don’t you, Dan?”

I nod. “Of course.”

He chuckles briefly. “Good.”

One of his hands presses firmly into the back of my head, and the other presses against my face, and my heart jumps in surprise. He’s holding a cloth against me, making sure I can’t struggle. But I’m so confused, I can’t dare move. Am I supposed to be scared - worried?

_Ugh_ , this stench is strong. It makes me feel woozy.

I groan in disgust, trying to let Phil know that it’s gross, thinking this is a joke. But…  _shit_ … I really feel sleepy.

Phil’s voice laughs against my ear.

“We’re gonna have some fun.”

***

I groan, head feeling heavy, limbs feeling weak. What happened? Am I hungover? My nose itches. I try to -

_Clink._

I freeze, confused. Am I still handcuffed? Am I still in that chair?

I gradually force my eyes open, finding myself in Phil’s room. Not too surprising, as he put me in this chair. But… so… did he knock me out?

Gently, I feel his fingers play through my hair, and, being as sleepy as I am, I let my eyes flutter closed again.

“Hey sleepy,” Phil sings - a bit too energetically for my liking, to be honest. “How was your little nap? Are we bright and awake now?”

I just groan and let my head flop, teasing him.

_Slap!_

My eyes snap wide open then _. Fuck_! Did Phil just  _hit_  me?!

“I  _said_ ,” he seethes, dropping to my eye level and gritting his teeth. “Are we awake?”

Lost for words, I just stare at him, shocked into stillness.

At that - at my reaction, it seems - Phil smiles. I don’t like it.

“What?” He grins, bearing his teeth. “Don’t you recognise me?”

Just then, maybe I’m imagining it, but Phil’s skin seems to break out into lines of black, spreading along his skin, like it’s running through his veins. But it can’t be real, of course it can’t.

“I’m still Phil - your adorable older friend for life,” Phil sings, weirdly excited in this moment. His eyes are even shining with it. “I’m just… There’s a little addition in here.”

I frown at him.

Phil continues, clearly eager to tell me. “It’s called a Remnant, Dan.”  _Ah!_  He mentioned those before! “A Remnant is a sort of spirit, so incredibly evil and desperate at death that it just kind of clings on, and remains in the world without a body. It’s like a ghost, except way more powerful.” His smile widens, like he’s unable to keep it down. “Remnants can possess the bodies of the living, and control their hosts.”

My heart drops into my stomach. I suddenly feel terrified.

“That’s right!” Phil laughs. “There’s a Remnant inside me right now! Isn’t that exciting?!”

Subtly, I try my binds behind my back where he can’t see -  _fuck_ , they’re locked tight. Why would Phil chain me up like this? How long has he been this deluded?

Quickly, his hand reaches round to my back and grips my wrists tightly, making my hands freeze mid-effort. Then, slightly closer to me than he was before, Phil tuts at me.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” he sighs, pouting, like I’ve just insulted him. “Look at my veins! You think these are normal?” Involuntarily, my eyes do drift to the lines of black scattered across Phil’s face. Now, they seem to pulse, to the rhythm of a heartbeat. It makes me feel sick to look at. “That’s the very Remnant you can see. It’s right inside me, possessing every vein, muscle, and nerve. Phil no longer has any control over his body, or its actions.” Then, as if realising a mistake, Phil’s eyes widen and he pulls a childish face. “Hang on. Tell me, Dan: would you rather me speak as Phil or the Remnant? It really won’t change a thing other than how you perceive me.”

Taking a deep breath, I dare to keep twisting my wrists in his hold.

“What the hell’s gotten into you?” I cry out. “Is this for that fucking video? Because this isn’t funny, Phil! It’s in bad taste!” I grit my teeth back at him. “So snap out of it and untie me right now!”

In silence, Phil just stares at me. His smile is gone.

He releases his grip on my wrists, instead bringing his hand to the back of my head. He fists my hair tightly and yanks my head back, making an embarrassing little squeal jump out of my mouth.

“Don’t ever mock me,” Phil growls down at me, sounding genuinely intimidating. I even get chills from it, all over. “How stupid do you have to be to mistake this situation, huh? You’re tied to a fucking chair. You’re at my mercy.” He grips it tighter and my fingers clench in pain. “I’m trying to have fun here. So don’t ruin my mood.”

My heart is racing. For the first time, I’m actually terrified because of Phil.

But… is it really even Phil?

“Try to piss me off again…” he warns, continuing. “And next time, I’ll remove something from your body.”

My eyes widen.

“I’ve been known to work in pairs before. Eyes, ears, testes - anything that makes the victim desperate not to lose the other.” Phil knocks his head against mine, keeping our eyes locked together. “So try me, bitch. I dare you.”

Under his stare, my whole body is overcome with a chilly, terrified shiver. Phil finally lets loose his grip on my hair, and I can finally expel the breath I didn’t realise I was holding.

I suddenly feel like crying. How pathetic.

“Now…” Phil starts tauntingly. He takes my chin in his hand and makes me look up at him. “Tell me you’re sorry.”

My eyes immediately look away, feeling humiliated. I’ve never had to behave like this in front of Phil before. If it was someone else here, treating me like this, I wouldn’t mind it as much. I just don’t like Phil seeing me this weak.

“I-I’m sorry…” I quietly gasp out, turning red, and feeling very inferior all of a sudden. It’s strange how quickly a simple act of obedience can affect you.

Phil smiles - not in a cruel, sadistic way, not like before. This time, he’s happy with me. “Good boy.”

This doesn’t feel like Phil. I don’t know how it’s possible, and maybe I’m just crazy, but I don’t want to believe this is him. I really want to believe that he isn’t here at all, that he doesn’t see this, that this thing before me really is something else. But that can’t be true. Phil must only be delusional. Right? But how could this come on so quickly?

Eventually, after a long and painful silence without looking at each other, Phil turns and walks himself over to the bed in front of me, climbing on top and kneeling on the covers. He looks like a child in those pyjamas.

Nervously, through the silence, I dare to raise my head.

“What… exactly…” I nervously struggle out, terrified that he’s suddenly going to forbid me from asking questions. “… are you?”

I catch Phil’s glance. He’s just staring at me, like a predator might as the sight of fresh meat. It stirs in me the urge to shiver again.

“I told you,” Phil answers. “A Remnant. A vengeful soul, looking for purpose in this world.”

_Ah._ He didn’t say  _“vengeful”_  before.

“And…” I gulp, anxious for the answer. “Did you find that purpose?”

He grins.

“Indeed. I want to have fun. I want to amuse myself, to pass the time.”

Suddenly these handcuffs feel far too tight.

“So what do you need me for? Why chain me up, and possess my best friend?”

Phil - or the Remnant, I really should pick one - leans forwards towards me and rests his arms casually on the bedframe.

“I’ve been around for centuries. I know about the mind, the body, and the soul, and the many ways they can all be broken. I’ve been bored for a long time, and all I want to do is have some fun. I want to wreak havoc, even just a little, and you will help me do it: all I need,” he smirks, “is a body or two.”

I gulp.

“You see, this isn’t really about you, or Phil. Not personally at least. I just stumbled across my next viable host, and how could I miss an opportunity like that? Such weak-willed, weak-bodied, easy targets are rare these days.”

I really hope that wasn’t an insult.

“Don’t worry - ” Phil reassures me, this time with a soft and kind smile “ - your friend Phil isn’t dead. He’s still in here. We’re just co-habiting for a short while. Once I leave this body, he will return to you, safe and sound.”

I want to thank him for that. It’s incredibly relieving, knowing Phil is okay. Though, can I really trust this thing’s word? But why stir up such hopes inside me? Wouldn’t a sense of hope reduce my compliance? Wouldn’t a sense of hopelessness be better for him to instil in me? What does he intend to do with me?

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Phil’s foot wiggling rhythmically beneath him, and his leg is bouncing subtly. I doubt he’s even aware of it. How much control does this thing have, I wonder?

“There isn’t very much I expect you to do, for me,” Phil starts. “I would like your responses to be authentic and genuine, after all.” I try not to let my anxiety show as I hear that sentence. “All I ask is that you are grateful when requested, repent when requested, and you do not try to oppose me. Yelling will get you nowhere. Begging, though - begging I encourage.” He pushes himself up and sits on his knees instead, showing me an excited smile. “But it won’t always get you anywhere, either. It really tends to spur me on more than anything.” My fingers clench behind my back, feeling very uncomfortable before this thing. “If you do get on my bad side, as I said before, you will start losing body parts. If it still doesn’t seem to work… well. You are replaceable.” He raises his eyebrows at me, making sure I’m paying attention. “ _Both_ of you.”

My heart trembles at the insinuation. “What… Phil too?”

He nods. “You aren’t just playing for  _your_  pain, here. That motivator doesn’t work on everyone. No - you’re playing for your friend’s too. Piss me off, and I won’t waste my time with you anymore.”

My spine straightens impulsively, my body making a conscious and unconscious decision to obey, without even knowing what it’s in for.

As if prompted, Phil stands himself up from the bed and makes his way over to me - a sight which I’m already starting to dread.

“W-what exactly do you plan to d-do with me?!” I nervously blurt out. I must really look like a fool.

Unexpectedly, Phil crouches down in front of me until he’s below my eye level, and he even gives me this look that tells me not to be afraid. It’s tempting, because it’s Phil’s face, and his eyes that I’ve come to know so well. I hate it. I wish it was anyone but him.

Then, he shows me a gentle smile.

“ _Torture_.” My heart drops in instant, unmistakable fear. “Your body - your living, receptive body - is now my toy, and I’m going to play with it.” His smile keeps growing into something I’ve never seen on Phil’s sweet face before. “I won’t mutilate it too badly - it’s more the mind that I want to break.”

My body already starts shaking. It’s not just fear anymore: I’m petrified.

“And, of course, I’ll cater your treatment especially to you.”

I need to vomit, but my stomach is paralysed too. Instead, it twists, curling in on itself.

Phil kneels up slightly, watching me very carefully, and rests one hand gently on my knee.

“It’s okay,” he soothes me. “You can cry. You can say you’re scared.” He grins. “That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

_For fuck’s sake, Dan, keep it in!_

He pats my leg lightly, playfully, and stands himself up again. “But first - ! A drink, of course.” Phil winks at me. “Hydration is very important, isn’t it?”

I hear the door open behind me, signalling that he’s leaving.

My body immediately lurches forwards and I retch, desperately needing to throw up - but nothing comes out. How disgusting. Tears are already building in my eyes, unable to stop them. Can any of this really be true? Torture and spirits? Possession? Whether or not any of it’s real, whether or not this is Phil or something else before me, they’re not letting up. They’re really going to do this.

A rope is swung over my head and tugged back, yanking me back by the neck. I feel it lock my windpipe shut, and instantly I’m struck with the horror that I can’t breathe. I start to choke, twisting my head in an attempt to escape, struggling my arms in their restraint. What the hell is going on?! I can’t - I can’t breathe!

I start heaving, desperate, gaining not a single ounce of air. I start gasping, trying to mouth out a cry for help, but no sound escapes me. My heart is pounding like crazy. I might fucking die!

The rope is loosened and my body drops forwards, coughing, panting quick and desperate.  _Oh god,_ I don’t want to ever be without oxygen again.

“Compose yourself,” Phil tuts from behind me, completely impassive towards me. “Or you’ll pass out before we’re done.”

The rope tightens again, and I’m thrown back against the chair, thrashing around once more.

He keeps doing this, over and over, for what seems like hours. Continuously cutting off my air supply before allowing it again, only for a brief and cruel few seconds, before tightening the rope again. My throat aches from the rope’s tightness. It’s not long before I can barely get a mouthful of air between each constriction.

“Phil - !” I gasp out as quick as I can one the rope is released. My fingers are trembling behind me, dripping with sweat. I’m light-headed. I could pass out at any moment. “St-op - !”

He gives me an extra blessed second of breath before the tightens the rope again. “No,” he answers bluntly, holding it for an extra moment longer before letting go.

I cough heavily. I hope to god he doesn’t dislocate anything. “Please! I can’t - ”

Tightens again. “I don’t care. You think your death will be a problem for me? I’ll just find someone else. So,” he taunts, letting me breathe again. “if you want to stay alive, work at it.”

_But I can’t!_

Oh god, I don’t want to die! But there’s nothing I can do. I can’t breathe in enough. I’m really going to die.

This time, maybe I’m losing it, or maybe Phil’s holding it longer than usual, but I start to feel like it’s never going to end. I feel the last of my energy fading, unable to see another breath in sight, and my body starts to fall limp. My eyes swell with tears.

I hate this. I want Phil back.

The rope is suddenly released, granting me air again, so through coughs I drink it up generously, desperately, vowing to never take it for granted ever again. The tears, however don’t stop, even as I feel myself breathing again. My body is trembling all over. I’ve never known such an ordeal.

Phil removes the rope from my sight and kneels down in front of me, and I can’t find it in me to try hiding myself from him. As I continue to choke and gasp, my throat feeling dry and tight, Phil watches me closely, eventually bringing his hand to my chin.

“Now,” he says softly. “Thank me.”

_What?!_

When I don’t oblige him, still unable to use my voice, Phil persists. “You’re grateful that I let you breathe again. So thank me.” I try to regain my voice but my breaths are still too shallow. This time, he squeezes my jaw. “ _Thank me_.”

I force myself to take one deep breath after another, knowing I have to get this over with.

“Th… thank… you…”

Phil shows me a smile and drops my head from his grasp, leaving it to flop down against my chest.

He disappears for a moment. I hardly notice, really, still preoccupied with my burning raw throat and steadying my breath. When he comes back holding a glass, I never thought I’d feel so shocked: water. He brings me  _fucking water_.

Phil brings the glass to my lips and tilts it, letting the water flow to my mouth, and I impulsively open my mouth to let it soothe my throat. As weird as it sounds, I’m actually thankful to him for this.

“I’ll always take care of you,” he tells me as I drink. I turn my eyes to him. “I wouldn’t want my toy to fall ill, or die, would I? What a waste of my efforts that would be. So I will never severely or fatally harm you whilst you’re with me. Do you understand?”

He takes the glass away from me, awaiting my response, and I confidently nod my head. And, out of genuity, for the water and the words, I mumble to Phil a quiet - and raspy - “thank you”.

At first, he looks just as shocked as I feel. And then he smiles.

“ _Very_  good boy,” he grins. “It comes naturally to you.”

Phil says that it’s now time for dinner, and we’ll head to the kitchen. I try not to get my hopes up that my restraints will be lifted, even just the wrist or ankle ones. Just for one moment, I want to get out of this horribly stiff wooden chair. But, instead, Phil secures both hands on the sides of the chair and lifts the whole thing up - with me still on it - and carries me through the house like I weigh nothing. My eyes remain wide open in shock. How the hell is he doing that?

“When a Remnant possesses a body,” Phil starts to tell me on our way to the kitchen, “It holds a different kind of control over it. Since Remnants are way more powerful than the living’s souls overall, they can make the body endure far more than it would at the control of an ordinary, living soul. Hence, when a Remnant enters a body, they are immediately in control.”

Phil turns his head to me, to gauge my reaction, but I’m just staring at him blankly.

He sighs. “That’s why I’m stronger than normal, you dummy.”

Oh.

I turn my head away again.

Phil places me back down against a wall in the kitchen and he leaves me there to watch and wait as he starts to cook us our meal. Strange. Phil doesn’t usually cook that much, because he’s clumsy and usually burns it or does something wrong. But he seems to have a good grasp of it at the moment. I wonder… is this because of the Remnant? Is that the one who’s good at cooking?

“Phil…” I call shyly, interrupting his humming. I’m not quite sure what to call him anymore.

“Yeah?” he calls back.

I fidget my fingers behind the chair. “Umm… if I may ask… what exactly is this co-habiting situation? If you’re - the Remnant, I mean - if the Remnant is in control, where exactly is Phil?”

Phil hardly flinches at the question, continuing to dice some meat. “Both souls are alive and aware in here - in this body - at the same time. If I were to fall asleep, so would he. We are both bound to the needs of the body, so whilst Remnants don’t usually eat or sleep or get tired, when we’re possessing a body we do. Right now, and always, Phil knows what’s going on, but it’s like he’s dreaming - he can’t control anything, but his body keeps moving. He knows I’m here, too. It would be hard not to.” He chuckles to himself. “And now you want to ask if we can feel things, right?”

I gulp and keep quiet, knowing I want to find out the answer.

Phil continues, still, like this conversation is entirely normal. “Well… like I said, this time is like a dream to him. I can feel more than he does, because I’m the most prominent one in here. But can you know whether or not you’re really feeling things when you’re dreaming?” Phil turns his head to me for my answer. I consider it, and shrug my shoulders. “There you go. I’ve never been in Phil’s situation, though, so I wouldn’t know.” Then he smiles. “You’ll have to discuss it with him later.”

The concept of seeing Phil again does warm my heart. I really do miss him, even though I know he’s there, even though I’m seeing him constantly. I’m painfully aware that this isn’t quite Phil in front of me.

He leaves the cooking for a moment and turns round to me, leaning back against the counter and folding his arms. Phil has a little smirk on his face.

“You do realise the significance of me telling you all this, right?” Anxious, I stare at him blankly. His grin widens. “Do you think I would bother rambling on about this stuff if we were only going to be together a short while?” My heart drops to my stomach.  _Oh, god._ “We’re going to spend a lot of time together, Dan.”

His gaze is menacing. Taunting, even. I feel obliged to look sheepishly away. “How… how long?”

Phil thinks. “Three more days.”

Wait. Three days? That’s not much at all! I can cope with that, surely. This Remnant doesn’t seem like it’s going to kill me after, anyway. And besides - it’s not like there’s anything I could do to stop it, let alone get it arrested once it’s finally gone.

That’s relying on the assumption that this Remnant - this supernatural, body-corrupting, psychopathic sadist - is telling me the truth.

“I can’t spend any more than four days in one body. If I do, I’ll become fused to it: permanently.” I dread to think about those implications: losing Phil forever to this Remnant. Would that mean he dies? “So,” he continues, smirking again. “Since your ordeal will very soon end, doesn’t any sort of struggle seem pointless now?”

I gaze away again. Phil pushes himself off the counter and walks over to me - a sight that makes a shiver run down my spine. He kneels down before me and brings his head into my view, grinning excitedly.

“Here’s a deal, okay? Be a good little boy for me, and let me have my fun without complaining too much, and I’ll let you both go free. No permanent damage.” He raises his eyebrows, tilting his head slightly, as if he were talking to a child. “Can you agree to that?”

I feel a sickening urge not to answer. If I do, it feels too willing, like I’m signing away my soul to him. Like I’m happy for him to torment me. I don’t want him to mock me like that, not as Phil.

He chuckles, grinning. “You’re so cute - do you know that?”

At those words, I feel my face starting to heat up.  _Fucking hell - a blush, really?!_  This is stupid. I hate it. I hate this Remnant-thingy so much.

Phil raises his hand up to my face and I flinch, scared. He pauses, but soon continues, threading his fingers through my hair. Inside, I try to keep myself calm.

“I knew you were going to be interesting,” he says with a greedy smile. It makes my stomach twist up. “Maybe it’s just this body’s behaviour towards you, but you’re certainly a thrill.”

That makes a chill run through me.  _Huh?_ What does he mean,  _“this body’s behaviour towards me”_? Is he talking about Phil?

He returns to the hobs after that, finishing up my -  _our?_  - meal.

Once it’s done, and he’s strained everything over the sink, I continue to watch, unable to do anything else, as Phil dishes it onto two separate plates - so it  _is_ for the both of us - and brings them over to the table in the living room. Strange. We never use that thing. We always eat our dinner on the sofa. Then Phil comes back, back over to me, and lifts me up again. He carries me into the living room too, again, like it’s not a problem, and drops me in front of the table.  _Ah_ , I think.  _So that’s why._

Anyway, he cooked pasta.

“I advise you eat up,” Phil informs me - humming as he kneels down behind me and unlocks my cuffs. My wrists fall loose, finally free, but I suppose it won’t be for long. “You need your strength. And I won’t be responsible for any damage you inflict on yourself by not eating properly.”

As he sits himself down and tucks in, I sit stone-still, staring at my plate. I feel no appetite for food, not at this time, and in its place festers the insatiable urge to cry. I try to hold it back, but it takes all my energy. I keep my head bowed and pretend to stare at my food, because I can’t bear to look at Phil now, not only with that Remnant-thing controlling him, but acting like normal whilst it does.

“Dan…” Phil purrs. I feel my body stiffen in worry. Without looking up, I can see Phil smiling calmly at me, at the edge of my vision. “I advise that you eat.”

Still, even though the harshness is clear in his voice, even though I’m aware of the warning, I still don’t move. I feel myself starting to sweat. I don’t want this to result in any pain by his hand, but I just can’t bring myself to eat.

Strangely, at this, though I expect him to hurt me somehow, Phil just  _chuckles_. I dare to look up at him then, still pushing back the urge to cry.

“Isn’t it strange…” he giggles. “Your hands are finally free, and yet, even when encouraged, you won’t move them.”

Phil pushes his chair back calmly stands himself up, treading slowly over to me. I keep my head bowed in fear, without saying a word, dreading whatever he’s about to do.

“I see what’s happening…” he sighs gently. His fingers play along the table as he walks around it. “With such a strange situation, with this Remnant and all, you’ve lost your appetite. Don’t worry - it happens. It’s completely normal. Pretty much everyone I’ve worked with has done it.” I don’t dare to look at him and Phil moves behind me. “And, though I really do need you to eat, I won’t hurt you for this.”

His hands suddenly appear in my lap and seize my wrists, gently pulling my arms back behind the chair. My heart starts up again in fear. But, as if reading me, or guessing my response, Phil shushes me calmly. As he continues to soothe me in a way I can’t quite believe whole-heartedly, he locks my hands back in place.

“It’s alright,” Phil hums, slipping his hands off me again. “There’s no need to be scared right now. I promise.”

He reaches for the plate in front of me and takes my fork into his hand. His other hand sneaks round my face. His fingers force their way between my lips and wrench my jaw apart, and I immediately start to gag in panic.

“Shh,” he tells me, bringing a forkful of food to my mouth. “Careful, okay?”

Phil drops the pasta into my mouth and pulls his fingers out, covering me with his palm instead so I don’t lose it.

“Go on,” he instructs. “Chew.”

Without even thinking, I find myself complying, chewing slowly, and swallowing firmly once I’m done.

“Good boy,” Phil sings, sounding genuinely pleased. He reaches for another mouthful. “You won’t have to thank me for this, by the way. You’ll be grateful enough for it later.”

He feeds me another few mouthfuls before setting the fork down.

“Could you eat the rest by yourself for me now?” he begs, resting both of his hands on my shoulders. I bow my head without a word and nod once, prompting his hands to drop to my hands and unchain them. “Good. You’re doing well for me, Dan.”

I wish he would stop saying that.

In silence, me and Phil sit at the dining table like we never have before and eat together as if we always have done. I feel tears forming in my eyes at the sense of longing this scene creates.

“Please don’t cry,” Phil groans, rolling his eyes at me. “It’ll make you lose your appetite again.” He wags his fork at me mockingly. “Do you want me to feed you again?”

I sob, but I wipe my eyes and force in another mouthful. Who knew pasta could taste so bitter and dry?

“Right!” Phil cries, jumping up the minute that I’m done. “Time to wash up!”

He grabs our plates and runs them into the kitchen, returning soon after to drag me with him - still in my hard, uncomfortable chair. He sits me in front of the sink, right in front of it, and turns on the tap so it starts to fill up. He doesn’t seem to have a bucket in there, though, which you should for washing up by hand. Besides - we have a washing machine. So why bother?

As Phil stands there, grinning and waiting, I finally dare to look up at him.

“Phil?” I ask quietly.

He pipes up instantly and smiles wider down at me. “Mhm?”

“Am I the one cleaning up?”

His eyes flash with something I obviously don’t know. “Sure.”

I feel nervous with that response.

“Done” he sings, turning off the tap. Why has he filled it to, like, maximum capacity?

Then Phil grabs my wrists, holds them together in one hand, and retrieves the cuffs from the back of the chair. He cuffs my hands together in front of me this time, on the cupboard handle below the sink.

“Phil - ”

“Up!” He grabs my shoulder and yanks me onto my feet. “Ready? Three - two - one - ”

“Phil - !”

His hand fists the back of my head and shoves me down, face straight down into the sink. The shock of it, at first, renders me frozen. And then I scream. I wriggle around, trying to force my head up again, but he shoves it back down. My heart leaps straight into my mouth and I’m sudden aware of every fragile heartbeat.

My head is yanked back up again, and I cough and gasp for breath.

“Don’t be stupid!” he reprimands, tugging my hair back in punishment. “Don’t waste your breath, okay? Or you’ll pass out. Now deep breath!”

I quickly do as he says, inhaling as greatly as I can, before he ducks me underwater again. This time I don’t struggle: I try to do my best to remain calm. As long as I’m careful, this won’t be so bad.

Problem is, seeing me calm down seems to still make him want to push me to the further limits of my body. By the time he pulls me up for air again, I’ve strained myself trying to hold my breath, and I can’t take another proper deep breath because of it.

“Poor baby…” Phil whines mockingly. “You really tried that time, didn’t you?”

I choke, still desperate to take my breath back. “Wait - ”

He forces me under again before I’ve even breathed in. So, on impulsive, I start to thrash about again, knowing I won’t last. My wrists strain again the cupboard door. Phil’s hand is heavy on the back of my head, heavier than I ever dreamt it could feel. It’s like it covers the entirety of the sink’s surface. It’s like a brick wall. It’s like I might never push my way to air again.

He pulls me up quicker this time, tutting for my behaviour. Despite the wet, I’m certain that I’m crying now. Ironically, my throat feels dry, like any more strain and I’ll fall right into a coughing fit.

“Please - !” I cry. “I can’t - I can’t - ”

Unsurprisingly, I get ignored. “Stop struggling,” Phil instead instructs me. “Keep yourself from struggling and see what happens.”

Then, strangely, he holds my head in place and presses a kiss to the soaking wet side of my face.

When he shoves my head back under this time, I do as he says: I force myself to keep still. I keep my eyes shut and try to block out the screaming need for oxygen. My fingers twitch, so I tighten them as hard as I can. I tense as much as I can to keep myself still. As the need gets worse, and the urge to struggle itches stronger, I still will myself to avoid it.

And, miraculously, if not even for a brief second, my panic drifts away. It’s like the water no longer scares me, and instead calms me, and through the silence of this calmness, of this stagnant water, it’s like I could stay here forever.

Then Phil drags me up, and I don’t cough as much this time.

“ _Very_ well done,” he praises me. “I’m impressed. You’re more obedient than I first thought.” As I pant, still needing to catch my breath, Phil leans his head right next to mine, so close that I can practically feel his grin against my cheek. “See? Was it good to trust me? Didn’t I help you out?”

Impulse kicks in, and through my breathlessness, I manage to gasp out a strange yet heartfelt “Thank you.”

At that, Phil laughs, and lets free the grip on my head. “Good boy.”

He drops me onto the floor without uncuffing me, so I collapse onto my knees facing the counter. I manage to shuffle myself round to face the other way, and by that time, he’s bringing a wet cloth to the chair. I think I should be grateful for that. He turns to me soon after holding a dry kitchen towel, and he pads it over my head and neck to dry me off. Instead of thanking him, I keep quiet this time, exhausted. The shoulders of my shirt are wet, too, but I guess he’s going to let that dry on me.

“Oh dear!” he cries suddenly, staring at the clock. “Look how late it is!”

I look up to: it’s nearly midnight. How long was I out for? How long has this already been going on?

“Phil,” I call, my voice slightly raspy and dry. “Can I…”  _Cough._ “Can I rest now?”

He stares at me, as if baffled. Then he erupts with laughter.

“Oh, Dan! I hardly have three days left with you. I have to savour every moment.”

My heart drops to my stomach, instantly making me feel sick. So… what if he won’t let me sleep? For three days?

“B-but - ”

He shushes me harshly and I find myself shutting up right away. “Don’t contradict me. It pisses me off.” I bow my head sadly.

A moment of silence passes between us. I’m not surprised: this Remnant couldn’t have planned out every single second he’d spend with me. I’m guessing he’s mostly working on impulse, with a slight moral boundary based predominantly on his past experiences. I wonder how many of those experiences he’s had before me and Phil. Did he say he’d been around for centuries? I wonder if he remembers who he once was. I wonder who he was, if he was as sadistic as he is now.

“Ah,” Phil sighs, relieved at a sudden idea. “Now seems like a good time for this.”

I try not to feel the slightest bit scared, but, of course, what good does that ever do?

He reaches up to the counter, pauses, and grabs something, before kneeling back down before me. I push myself back against the cupboard, already helplessly scared. Phil grins and plays with the knife between his fingers.

“There may come times when I don’t keep you tied up,” he says in a calm, probably mocking, voice. “And I won’t always be looking to make sure you keep still, either. It’s not like you could run, anyway - I changed the locks. Obviously.” He winks at me. He brings the knife down to his lap and starts wiping its blade with his shirt. “But I must always be sure.”

He grabs the bottom of my shirt with one hand and lifts it up, exposing my stomach. Phil’s grip changes on the knife, gripping it tightly, and he pulls it briefly back behind him before shooting it forwards, embedding it right in my belly.

A choked gasp leaves my throat as I feel it. When I drop my head down to look at it, my body instantly floods with a heavy, sickening dread.

“Shh…” Phil warns soothingly, pre-empting my urge my scream. “Keep calm, or you’ll dislodge it.”  _That doesn’t make me feel better!_

He pulls it out again right away, proceeding to press a warm, wet cloth against the wound instead. The same two words of gratitude appear in my throat for that, but I force them down.

“There,” Phil hums, placing down the knife. “See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

My bottom lips trembles in shock. “W-what…”

Phil, again, shushes me softly. “I told you, remember? Nothing I do will ever be severe. You don’t think I know where I’m stabbing?” He pulls the cloth away, examines the blood, and places a plaster over the scar - the knife wasn’t very big, so neither is the cut, thank god. “The only damage this will do is make it harder to walk for a little while.” I moan out a confused “Huh?”, but Phil doesn’t say any more.

“And now,” he continues, sliding further away from me. He grabs my ankles from underneath me and yanks them out, making me fall onto my bum. He smiles, taking off my sock, gripping my ankle, and retrieving the knife.

Instantly, I start to squirm, trying to kick him off.

“Wait!” I cry. “N-no!”

Phil groans and slams the butt of his fist into calf, immediately making my leg go numb with pain, and he shoves the cloth into my mouth -  _oh god,_ it’s got my blood on it!

“Shut up,” he growls, securing his grip on the knife. “What did I tell you? Never oppose me.”

He lifts my foot and places the knife against the ball of my heel, so I cringe, whining into my new gag, and scrunch my eyes closed.

The knife is dragged sharply along the base of my foot, hell to ball, and a sharp squeal attempts to leave my mouth. I feel tears well in my eyes at the pain.

Phil hums a little tune to himself as he presses a long plaster down along the cut. Then he moves onto the other leg, gripping my ankle and bringing the knife into place. He pauses, waiting for some reason, but I don’t look - I can’t bear to look. He lets out an amused sort of scoff.

He cuts through my other foot in the same way, fixing it up with a plaster again. By the time that’s done, the tears have fallen onto my cheeks, and my fingers are tangled round each other in their cuffs.

Phil grabs both of my ankles and lifts my legs up, bending them at the knee, so my feet face the floor.

“Now - see what happens if you try to stand.”

I don’t get a say in this - he presses my feet into the ground himself. I feel pain shoot up the cuts like lightning bolts and I cry out - throwing the cloth out of my mouth -  trying to let it up. Phil generously lifts them off again, giggling to himself; pleased with himself.

I drop my head onto my chest and start to cry, feeling helpless, and stupid, and my sobs get muffled by the cloth.

For a moment, nothing happens. It’s just Phil - the Remnant, or both - sitting there, crouched, in silence, watching me try to keep my sobbing quiet, as though he won’t notice I’m doing it. Stupidly, I really do cling to that impossible notion: I hope that he can’t see me cry, can’t see me be weak. It’s so childish of me in so many ways. I feel young again, like a little kid, throwing a quiet tantrum at something small and meaningless. It reminds me of the way I cried so hopelessly, so wastefully and pointlessly, when my dog died. Crying is a stupid, wasteful, childish thing to do. It doesn’t change anything. It accomplishes nothing. All it does now, in this scene, is amuse my torturer. It’s a weak immersion on my part, and it spurs him on. How pitiful.

Something cold - no, warm - touches my cheek, and I snap my head up in panic: it’s Phil’s hand. He’s practically pouting, his hand outstretched, fingers curling round the side of my head, until the tips lay, freezing, only just on the back of my neck.

“Strange…” he almost whispers, cocking his head slightly. He’s  _observing_ me now, curiously. His expression, only subtly, takes on a gentle frown, and, for a moment, Phil almost looks concerned, almost -  _almost_ , dare I even suggest it - pained. I feel his fingers twitch for a moment against my skin. He blinks, focus returning to his gaze. “What’s got you so upset, hmm?” he says in a soft voice. “Is it because I won’t let you sleep? Or because you won’t be able to walk for a while?”

_Strange_ , I think without answering him.  _There’s not a single doubt that it isn’t because of him._

But that makes me wonder even more: does he feel remorse for this? Or is he proud? Or is he simply apathetic? Why does he suddenly care about my feelings, enough to mention them - no,  _ask_ me about them?

I turn my eyes from him again, without uttering a single word.

But,  _then_ , his thumb starts moving, seeming to… caress my cheek. It makes my heart jump in my chest. This is… this is weird. This doesn’t make sense for him to do.

“Look at me,” he seems to request rather than order, for once, and, nervously, I find myself doing so. Now, unlike a second ago, Phil’s gaze terrifies me, yet seems to be reeling me in at the same time. His eyes seem heavier, brighter, full of something that doesn’t quite say Remnant to me. It… look like Phil.

I feel my face flush with heat, and, strangely, so does the rest of my body. He’s suddenly too close. I feel like I can’t look away, but I’m desperate too. I feel weak again, in an entirely different way. No - it’s different to before, but it’s not at all unfamiliar.

Ever so slightly, Phil leans closer. He hums to himself in thought. “ _Very_ strange…” He almost purrs that one. I feel my throat close up, so I turn my head away, out of his hand; and, in this silent and tense scenario, which seems to intensify every little movement, I gulp.

Phil withdraws, letting a shiver run through his body, as if to expel the weirdness of that last minute. Then, as if to himself, he lets out a little laugh.

“Let’s get you back to my room now.” He unlocks one of my wrists, and in one quick movement, switches the cuff to the other side of the handle, and reattaches it to me. My hands are thrown over his head and Phil positions himself between my legs, crouching, slipping his arms under my knees, and suddenly he’s standing, and I’m in the air - with my limbs wrapped around his body.

I squeal in surprise and tighten myself around him, shivering in fear. Phil simply giggles at that and proceeds to carry me out into the hallway again, making me bounce slightly with every step, on the way to his room again. I see our apartment fall away from me as we go - now holding a different air than it used to. Before, it was innocent, and unsuspecting. Now it’s a strange mixture of taint and nostalgia. I close my eyes to stop my heart aching.

Phil stops moving and gently lowers me onto the bed -  _his_  bed - and he briefly tells me that he’ll be a minute, and he leaves the room again. The door is left open.

I feel the temptation of that door pulling me in, but my brain keeps me back. I should know there’s nowhere I can go. This door is probably just a taunt.

I slowly lower my gaze down to the floor - or, more accurately, my feet. Through the plasters, they start to pulse heavily, and my stomach churns at the feeling. I pause, considering, and cautiously lower my feet to the floor, being extra gentle with them.

On impact, no matter how light, pain and sensitivity sting right up the nerves in my legs, and I bite down on my lip to stifle the cry. I snap my feet back into the air, leaving them throbbing even worse than before.

Again, from that, the urge to cry wells inside me again, just like a little child. Pathetic. But I can’t help it. Knowing it’s childish, futile, any of those things, it can’t make me stop it.

Phil returns, seeing me and grinning, holding that same chair I was in before.

“Right - ” he sings, putting the chair in the corner of the room and turning back to me, “ - before we continue, do you need to take a bathroom break?”

For a moment, my brain fails me, and I just stare at him.

Phil blinks back at me. “Dan.” I blink too, focusing again. “Do you need the toilet? Because I’m not going to be the one cleaning up after you if you lose it later.”

My stomach twists up at the throat. “Y-yes please…” I practically whisper back, bowing my head.

So Phil picks me up again, carrying me, this time, into the bathroom.

He lets me use the toilet by myself, thankfully, but only because, as I soon learn, our bathroom door now locks from the outside. I want to knock on it to tell him that I’m done, but when I stare at the floor beneath my feet - now feeling like an invisible floor of spikes - I gulp and quietly tell him I’m done instead. Phil comes in, lifting me up again like the koala I’ve become, but instead of carrying us back out he lowers me into the shower.

I let out a noise of confusion but he shushes me, so I keep quiet. I already start trembling when he climbs in with me, sliding the glass door shut behind us. I gulp and turn my head away from him. My mind instantly falls onto the shower head, thinking back to the kitchen sink scenario only recently.

Phil picks up the shower head -  _oh god_ , my stomach starts to twist up in fear. He switches on the stream and I flinch at the sound. My heart’s already thumping in anticipation. My breaths already feel short. I don’t want to through this again. I scrunch my eyes tightly closed and take in a deep breath.

The water lightly falls over my back. Hesitantly, gradually, I relax myself, shyly opening my eyes. Kneeling before me is Phil, carefully watching the water run over me as if this were a tricky task. His eyes catch mine, and, this time, he doesn’t show me that sinister smile.

“It’s alright,” he tells me, in a normal voice. “We just need to wash up.”

I find the question bubbling in my throat and don’t stop it in time: “Why?”

“Because hygiene is important, Dan. Don’t you know that?” I drop my gaze to the floor. “It’s especially important when it’s being put through such rough treatment. Do you know how many people I’ve seen shit themselves?” The curse doesn’t sound natural coming out of Phil’s mouth. It’s like, to the Remnant, it would have flowed; but saying it with Phil’s mouth didn’t make it right. It’s like the mouth doesn’t quite obey. I shake the thought from my mind and empty it instead: I’m too tired to try thinking about such complexities.

He lets the water run over my whole body, keeping a focused eye as he does so.

“Phil…” I blurt out nervously. He hums back, letting me talk. “I’m just… is there a reason why we’re washing with my clothes on?”

He pauses, and lifts his eyes to me with an incredulous look in them. “That’s an odd thing to say,” he remarks, raising an eyebrow. “Please tell me you wash your clothes, too.”

The weirdness of that statement renders me silent for a while. “But… of course I do. Just… just not in the shower.”

Phil continues to stare at me. It seems that the focus in his eyes fades away, like he’s not actually looking at me anymore, but rather he’s preoccupied with his thoughts. Then, when it comes back, he looks shocked: like the kind where you go all pale.

“Oh dear…” he mumbles to himself, shaking his head violently as if to throw the thought away. Then, blinking, as if to bring himself back, his eyes fix on me again. “Fine - take it off then.”

He drops the shower head and pulls off my shirt, and I sit there awkwardly as he undoes my jeans and works them off my body too.

Then, panicked, I blurt out: “Can I keep these on though?” Instantly I flush red - I can’t believe I even  _thought_  that I might end up naked in front of Phil. But, and I can’t understand why, for a moment I felt like he might actually take off my underwear, too.

Phil freezes again, thinking, and quickly nods his head. He grabs the shower head again and continues to rinse me - and now I feel more awkward than before, so my body curls into itself slightly, wishing I really had kept my clothes on.

“Did you really not know?” I dare to ask him, unable to keep my curiosity from blurting out. “About showering, I mean.”

He seems to be ignoring me now, almost sulking if I dared call it that. “No one ever complained before…” he grumbles - yep, definitely sulking.

This time, though my curiosity buzzes, I manage to keep my mouth shut. It does raise a lot of questions though: if he really didn’t know, has he really been washing other people that he’s been using like me? Does this mean he can’t remember his old life, or they just didn’t wash themselves back then?

“I have access to Phil’s memories, okay?” he suddenly tells me - I feel his damaged pride may have inspired it. “I can figure out anything I want to know about you two, and about your ways of life, whenever I want. But I can’t just download everything! That would be a nightmare. So, thanks to you, I had to  _watch_ him shower.” He shoots me a glare then, one that seems to want revenge, and I quickly look away. And, I decide, I won’t think any more on what he’s just told me.

He lets me rub the soap into myself and the shampoo into my hair, and rinses me off himself. To my surprise - but certainly relief - there seems to be nothing more (nothing torturous) to this shower; Phil turns it off, puts the shower head back, and takes us both out of the shower - after a quick dry, of course. With the towel around my waist, he carries me back to his room, and, as a final act of kindness, he lets me change my underwear in peace.

For some reason - one I think should now be categorised as ‘nostalgia’ - I feel the need to change into my pyjamas, like we’re going to go to bed now. It makes a sharp pain of longing ache in my chest and I will it away.  _Stop it_ , I reprimand myself.  _Phil will be given back to me soon - it’s another couple of days, right? And then everything will go back to normal. Maybe he won’t have any memory of this. That would be nice._

“Umm… should I put a new shirt on… and stuff..?” I mumble timidly, feeling awkward being only in my boxers now.

Phil turns himself back around, and, simply by the smile on his face, I can tell I won’t be any more clothed for a while.

“It’s alright,” he taunts, tapping the top of the chair and smirking. “Now, back you get. We might get a bit wet again awfully soon.”

_Awfully_ , I think, as I reluctantly climb back into the chair.  _What a perfect word._

 


	3. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been around for centuries. I know about the mind, the body, and the soul, and the many ways they can all be broken. I’ve been bored for a long time, and all I want to do is have some fun. I want to wreak havoc, even just a little, and you will help me do it: all I need is a body or two.”
> 
> Summary: Phil remembers these things from an old children’s book series, but never thought they could be real - until he encounters one. When a Remnant appears in their lives, Dan and Phil are helpless to its will. And it’s desperate to toy with them.

**WN: strong language, hostage/prisoner situation, spiritual possession (see Remnants - Skulduggery Pleasant series), restraint, torture, emotional manipulation (Stockholm Syndrome-esque?), smut/ambiguous consent (and ambiguous identity?); restraint, whipping, fingering, toys, penetration, riding**

A very,  _very_ long time passes, seemingly never to end. Scene after scene, taunt after taunt, and laugh after laugh, my mind starts to warp. I haven’t gotten any rest yet - sleep or otherwise - and my whole being is drained because of it. I start to zone out at times of his torture. He keeps the windows blocked and the lights on, so I no longer know what time of day it is, or how long we’ve been doing this for.  I have no clue how much longer I’ve got. And, to make it all worse, even with my desperate need for a rest, these things he puts me through drags my mind and body into hyperdrive, adrenaline pumping, full exertion. It’s draining, but it can’t stop: it’s in an inescapable cycle of desperate and frantic self-preservation. It doesn’t know, which my conscious mind does, that it’s efforts are in vain. Even so, the body doesn’t listen.  _Mind over body_ , my thoughts drift to.  _Body over mind_. I know I can’t escape, but I also know that I won’t die. Either way, the body still doesn’t listen.

Most of the torture seems to revolve around keeping me alert through the exhaustion: usually, this boils down to oxygen privation. Sometimes, though, however rare, he plays his knife with me. He doesn’t like to much because that causes me long-lasting scars, and once an area is cut he can’t exactly cut it again, like he can with my throat.

I wonder briefly if a lot of this is merely an act for me: at the start (if I remember this properly), he threatened to mutilate me - sever a limb from a pair, or let me die if I was too weak for his playtime. But other things he has said seem to contradict that: instead, he said he won’t let me die, or injury me too severely. And he appears to be going through with that. So I wonder: was all that simply to scare me? Play with my mind, like he claimed he liked most?

He pulls me up from the soaking shower floor, trembling, and carries me back to his room, only drying me a enough to not soak himself as well this time. I still can’t help but gasp and splutter as he brings me back to the chair - his most recent torture was, as I think it’s called,  _waterboarding_ : holding the shower head over my head and letting the water jet down onto my face. It simulates the act of drowning, I think, or at least that’s how it felt.

Back in my chair, chained down once again, and still choking, he declares his next activity, which I hardly catch, and he grabs himself a grin and a knife. I barely have the energy to sink into myself in fear.

Weirdly, he straddles me, a leg by either side of my chair, and I find myself leaning back instinctively, although there’s nowhere for me to go. The blade of his knife gleams intimidatingly in his hand, and his fingers tighten round it.  _Knives aren’t dangerous_ , I think to myself,  _but they are in the hands of dangerous people._

He swipes the blade across the flesh of my collarbone and a cry of pain escapes me with the sharpness. And, weirdly, he leans his head down, and suddenly his mouth is against my cut. He starts to suckle like a baby to a breast and I feel my blood leaving me. A strange, unfamiliar shiver runs down my spine and my head drops back; my mouth falls open, strange, with the absence of much pain, and, unexpectedly, a deep moan climbs out of my throat. His tongue swipes through the cut and my whole body shivers this time, momentarily overcome, and I try to close my mouth. A misplaced sort of heat washes through my body, making my legs edge slightly closer to each other. Maybe, if I wasn’t so tired, I would be more alarmed.

He pulls back abruptly, cocks his head, and frowns. Strange, I expected him to smile. He pushes himself off me, still frowning, and kneels down before me.

And then - and only then - does he grin.

“Oh,” he sings, with a weird little inflection, as if it was almost a question. “Oh my. Now this certainly  _is_ strange.” He raises his head, fixing his eyes on me, and that grin too. “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

A sense of sudden and unusual fear rushes down my spine like cold water, and I quickly shake my head. At that, he tuts, climbing up onto the chair with me again and sitting - straddled - over the edge of my thighs.

“But, Dan…” he hums, with the inflection of a chuckle hidden within. His eyes drop downwards, and, before I can catch on, his hand is suddenly pressing into my crotch. I gasp at the touch. “The cock doesn’t lie.”

My whole world seems to drop out from under me, and I’m left spinning in this unfamiliarity. The shock of it doesn’t feel real at all. It can’t be. Even with this Remnant, even with such an impossible concept - and  _especially_ with it inside Phil - this can’t be real.

And yet, even as I say that, as his hand gently starts to roll, and I  _feel_ it, I have to admit -  _the cock does not lie._

“W-wait…” I gasp out, already trembling, even though I know he never listens to it. It’s automatic now.

He simply shushes me back and drops his head against my shoulder. As his hand work on me through the thin and barely existing underwear I wear, I start to let out whimpering little moans with every breath. I’m so confused. Does this feel good? I can’t tell. I feel almost numb.

“Isn’t this strange?” he chuckles, making his breath tickle my neck. It makes a sensitive shiver trickle down my spine, and, for a brief second, I do feel good. “You, getting hard like this, and enjoying being under my hand.” I whine at the thought. “You are enjoying it. There’s no way to lie about that.”  _Ugh, why does he have to purr like that?_ Then, his head shuffles closer, and I feel his lips press softly against my neck. “ _Fuck_. This is new for me too.”

A sudden, involuntary moan jumps out of my mouth, and my head falls back over the back of the chair. My body starts to pant. My wrists twitch behind my back - the chair’s back, they’re one in the same now, merged. My hips even buck up sleepily, unconsciousness desperate for more, unconsciously enjoying it. I feel dissociated now. I feel like I’m dreaming. What a weird fucking dream.

“You know,” he purrs, gently kissing my neck as I continue to pant. “You’re only like this because of Phil. That’s it - it’s him. You’re lustful towards him. It took me a while to figure out, but you certainly are.” I let out a whine and he lets out a chuckle. “Maybe I should have told you this earlier, but now seems like a brilliant time.” His hand slips under the fabric of my underwear and I cry out in shock as his - as  _Phil’s_ …! “We’re both conscious in here, yes, and we both inhabit this body in all the same ways; I’m wrapped around his nerves, and Phil  _is_ his nerves - so, therefore…” He laughs against my neck. “… We both feel this.”

I feel words - speech - bubble up from my throat and into my mouth, and my jaw falls open to allow for the shapes of the words, but they never quite form. I’m certainly panting now, overcome, unable to think of a way to escape this dream. The room doesn’t exist anymore - it fell away, leaving only me, him, and the chair.

“And the desires of the body are completely separate to me - they are the body’s - the living’s - alone.”

But that… that could mean…

He lifts his head to my ear, teasing his lips over the lobe. “So, if you could feel me right now… you’d be very surprised.”

Now, I’m certain, this isn’t real.

My head spins and my vision starts to blur. I think I’m oxygen deprived; yes, that must be it, and I’m daydreaming, on the verge of collapse. I must have gone insane.

His fingers…  _fuck_ , why do they have to feel so good? So long… so firm… I can’t help but think about it, immersing myself in every little detail. This is impossible. My toes and fingers curl desperately, clenching round nothing, in a very telling attempt to cling onto reality. My pants have diminished now, replaced in every breath with a breathless moan. I feel so hot, like I might melt, or burst, if he doesn’t stop.

He giggles into my ear - breathless, too, which warps my mind like opium. Like that, his voice is like aperitif - stirring these feelings anew within me, this new appetite, never letting it end, or letting me be done with it.

“Are you going to come?” he teases. I can’t find it in me to object. “Definitely looks like it. You’re about ready to let go, don’t you think?”

I let out a whine in the shape of a beg.

I don’t understand. I’m way out of it right now, and I can’t make sense of what’s happening. There is no sense at all to it; at least, nothing I can see. But I don’t need to. It doesn’t have to make sense to me - none of this has - because that it changes nothing. No matter what goes on in my head, no matter how conscious or distant I get, it happens anyway.

Which is why, right now, without knowing whether or not it really feels good, I’m going to come.

The flesh of my collar is parted again with a sharp second of pain, and he brings his mouth to this one too; at the touch, at his tongue, enjoying me, another shiver runs through me - I never thought I’d like this so much, or maybe my body’s gone mad too, but that alone is all it takes, and heat rushes through me like wildfire, setting ablaze my every nerve, and, for a weird moment, I wonder what it would feel like to have a Remnant wrapped around them, too.

I drop limply into the chair, feeling my muscles still twitch from this newfound strain. his hand withdraws, but his tongue still cleans up for a while - the cut is new and still bleeding. Once done, he sits back on the edge of my thighs and admires me, grinning. He even cocks his head a little, as if in interest.

“Well,” he laughs, still a little breathless himself. “Looks like I’ve found something new to explore.”

He cleans me up quickly after that, humming to himself in childlike excitement, and, then, what shocks me: he uncuffs me and lays me down in his bed. Having regained some of my energy, I whine out a little expression of my confusion, but Phil just shushes me.

“It’s alright,” he soothes, remarkably (and strangely) gently. “You’re gonna get some rest.” I perk up at that. Surely he can’t really mean it, though: we both know how limited his time is, he doesn’t want to waste a single second. Yet, even so, he pulls the covers over me. “Sleep tight,” he says, pressing a weird kiss to the top of my head. “I have some more prep to do.”

With that, he leaves me. I can’t tell whether or not he stays in the flat or goes out, because the wave of well-needed sleep quickly drags me under.

I wake to him gently shaking me, singing for me to “rise and shine”. However long I was able to sleep, it definitely wasn’t enough, and I’m more exhausted now than I have been to date. I’m carefully scooped up and lifted from the bed, and laid down gently on the floor beside it. I’m rolled onto my front, groaning sleepily, as Phil’s hands bring my arms over my head. I hear a  _click_  and feel the familiar texture of handcuffs on my wrists. Looking up, I see I’m in front of the radiator. I drop my head back down to the floor.

“Dan,” he sings to me, kneeling beside me. “Wake up now. It’s time to get back to it.”

_“It”_ slowly comes back to me, as I gradually wake up; I take in a long, deep breath, and expel it slowly. “Wait…” I moan. “Not ready…”

He scoffs. “Well get ready. I’m very excited for our next activities: I’ve never tried any of this before.” He ruffles my hair playfully and stands himself up. I let my eyes follow him, wondering how soon he’s going to start again, and what exactly this new activity is. But, as I twist my head round, he falls back down to my side and shoves it back to the floor, growling. “No! Head down at all times, you hear me? Or you’ll ruin the surprise!”

That conveniently gets my blood pumping, very promptly waking me up.

His hand feels heavy on my head, keeping it pressed against the rough carpeted floor of his bedroom, whilst his other hand works a string of cloth into my mouth. Then, finally letting up his grip, both his hands work to secure the gag round the back of my head.

“I’m not sure how different this will be from what I’m used to,” he informs me, “but I’m pretty sure this could get loud.”

I take that as a warning, making anxiety for near-future events boil within me. I let out a helpless whine, unable to keep my fears hidden. I want to turn around, I want to see what he’s about to do - but I fear, in I do, that he will punish me for it. So I squeeze my eyes tightly shut.

I’m not ready to do this again. Especially not with our last activity returning to my mind. Is this going to be anything like that? Is that what he meant by exploring something new, and having more prep to do? If that’s the case, what on earth might he do to me now?

_CRACK!_

A sharp and sudden pain shoots across my back and I instantly scream into my gag, body jerking at the hit. That… that was a hit, right? What else could it have been?

I carefully open my eyes and peak round my shoulder, desperate to know what that was: he stands there, grinning, wielding what I think to be a whip. It’s mostly pole, pitch black in colour, but on the end sits a small loop of thick leather - also black. I feel the mark sting at the sight, realising what had hit me.

His eyes catch mine and his grin widens.

“Eyes away, Howell,” he orders, bringing the leather at the end to my cheek and pressing my head back down to the floor. I wince at the touch of my new tool of torture and shut my eyes tightly again, keeping my cheek to the ground. My stomach twists up at this new scenario. It doesn’t feel like the rest that came before: it feels… more awkward. My fingers twist together in discomfort. I don’t like this feeling. It’s too foreboding. I feel helpless to it.

He brings it down again, to the mirrored spot on my back, and another cry leaves my mouth at the pain. He attacks a few different areas of flesh, leaving them throbbing and hot, and I feel tears welling in my eyes, though I’m desperate to keep them in. He hadn’t whipped me before today. Most of his torture was breathing-based, not physical pain like this. How severe are these hits? Will they make walking a struggle, like the cuts? Will they take long to heal?

My body trembles after probably a dozen or so lashes (I wasn’t keeping count, I just hoped each one might be the last). I feel exhausted and I don’t know why: was this activity really such a strain on my body? Was I tensing and flinching that much? The skin of my back burns with the remnants of pain. I hope I’m not bleeding.

“So,” he pauses, sounding slightly breathless. “What has that done to you, hmm?”

I feel itchy at his question, unsure what he really means.

Unexpectedly, I feel the strange touch of leather - warm now, from the friction - at my inner thigh, and I flinch, breath hitching, in confusion. It slides its way up, between my legs, and I flinch again as it runs - over the thin protection of my boxers - against my cock. A cry of surprise escapes me, but I can’t move away. I feel my face burn bright red.

He lets out a laugh. “Wow. You really are hard, you pervert.”

He lets the leather of the whip subtly stroke along me, and I can’t help but enjoy it, amazing myself at my lack of shame. Strangely enough, I really have become frustrated, and such contact, limited as it is, is relieving. My face contorts in shame but a moan still leaves my lips, only making my humiliated state worsen.

He scoffs, clearly amused. “Look at you. So desperate.” I bury my face into my arm, wishing he wouldn’t see me like this.

It’s worse now, because I can’t stop thinking about what this Remnant said to me before:

_“Both souls are alive and aware in here - in this body - at the same time.”_

If they’re both conscious, then Phil is seeing me like this too.

“I didn’t really think you’d like this, to be honest,” he tells me, taking the whip away. “I was curious, but I thought it might be too much. Turns out my suspicions were right.” I can visualise the grin growing on his face. “You’re a masochist.” He laughs. “I’ve never met one like you before. It really changes the game.”

The whip cracks against the small of my back and I moan into my gag, feeling shameful for it. He chuckles again, obviously watching me carefully.

“Isn’t it weird, how a shift in atmosphere can change your reaction?”

I want to ask him why on earth he’s doing this now. Why the sudden change? Why the sudden interest in sexual elements, rather than the pain?

Is it really because of Phil?

I’d actively tried to push away the thoughts of Phil still being there, which is hard when it’s his face I’m looking at. I can try to tell myself that there’s something else behind it, that he isn’t really there. I don’t like thinking about how he might actually be there, behind those eyes, watching me with the same view as the Remnant. I don’t like wondering what he must think of me, especially with what the Remnant thinks of me. Can they think differently, being in the same body? Are their minds at all linked? I wonder if the Remnant is wrapped around the brain, like he is the nerves, or intricately wired through the blood vessels throughout it. I wonder how that must feel, if Phil feels it at all. I wonder if it’s suffocating. I could know that feeling well.

The leather of the whip gently touches my spine - ironic, and anxiety-invoking - and runs lightly down the groove, and I shiver involuntarily at the strange, sensitive feeling. It reaches my boxers, pauses, and slips underneath.

I cry out in confusion into my gag and turn my head instinctively round - and this time, he doesn’t punish me. He’s too fixated elsewhere. The whip drags down my underwear and I feel myself turn bright red at this new exposure. At the sight of myself, I spin my head back and bury my face into the ground in embarrassment, feeling him continue to pull the boxers all the way off my legs.

The whip, now, lightly touches the bare, unsuspecting skin of my bum, and I try not to whine into my gag and the thought. Gently, he lets it stroke me, either soothing me or exploring me. He starts to hum as he does it - not melodically, not to entertain himself, but rather in a long, contemplative drone. It’s quiet, and I can barely hear it, but against the complete silence of this room it’s hard not to focus on it.

He cracks the whip against me suddenly, instantly making me cry out into my gag -  _fuck_ , that’s a sensitive area. “Don’t tense,” he warns - is his voice losing its hostility or is that just me? That almost sounded like a suggestion rather than an order. The whip is gently tapped against my bum, encouraging me to untense, and so I do. He lets out a sudden, almost awkward laugh. “Strange…” he hums - again. Why? What is he thinking?

He slips the whip to my thigh, stroking the even more sensitive inner skin there, and I find myself growing breathless. Is this really enough to affect me? Am I truly that weak? My cock feels heavy and hot beneath me - just having something touch me so close, rousing the thought of direct contact again, is enough to worsen me. I even feel it start to pulse in frustration. I scrunch my eyes up tight as though I could will Phil away, and make him stop seeing me like this. I can’t help it: I’m too weak. I’m too easy to overwhelm. Maybe the Remnant was right: a simple change of air can make all the difference.

“Are you hard now?” he asks me. I don’t reply - I’m too embarrassed. The whip withdraws and instead he brings it to my head, slipping it under my cheek and bringing my head up for him to see. “Look at me.” I feel embarrassment oncoming, but I obey: he is standing, leaning down to see me closer. He looks infinitely curious. “Tell me: are you hard?”

Strangely, with the way he looks at me, I feel almost drawn to him. My fears about it - rational as they are - seem to fall away, and, instead, I almost want him closer. But I already know that isn’t the Remnant my feelings are aimed at.

I find myself feeling weaker the longer I stare, and, naturally, without even thinking, I nod my head.

His lips grow into a content little half-smile. “Do you want to be relieved of that?” he suggests, almost softening his voice.

Reminders of my current state grow in prominence throughout my body, and I find myself nodding, if I dare say: eagerly.

His smile softens and he disappears, letting my head drop back to the floor. I wonder if the smile was a new thing for the Remnant, or if, somehow, that was Phil, like a revenant in his own body. That thought makes a warmth kindle within my chest. It must not be long now: I can finally have Phil back.

But I’m not thinking straight, am I?  What if Phil really has been aware this whole time? What if he remembers not only everything he saw, but everything he felt? This possession may traumatise him. He might think himself mad. I may not really get Phil back after all.

But I don’t want to think about that. I want to remain hopeful. After all, he’s coming back to me alive and unharmed, isn’t he? And that’s the best possible resolution to this scenario.

I realise, coming to, what scene has just exchanged, and I blush furiously in shock. I had admitted to my body’s state, shameful as it is, and agreed for this Remnant to help me satisfy it?! What was I thinking? Had I been swayed, if only for a moment, swept under this creature’s spell? Had that really been me?

I’m being hopeful now, of course I am. I’m being evasive. I don’t know how this Remnant works, how it can possess people and influence them. I can’t know if it can reach out to two people at once. But I know I’m desperate to excuse my extraordinary reactions as not my own.

“Head down for a moment,” he orders, which I awkwardly comply to. My heart starts to race within my chest. The urge to take a glance is overwhelming, and I almost start to shake in fear. But fear of what? Of him? Or myself? This strange thing that I don’t recognise. Well that could be either one of us.

I hear the sounds of… umm, DIY? It sounds like plastic, or metal, like he’s working something together. The urge to look grows stronger, feeding off the ambiguity.

“Hips up,” he tells me, and anxiety washes through my body at what that could imply. Helpless in my nerves, I raise my hips. He sighs. “Higher. So it can fit underneath.” I let out a sudden noise of confusion, but it gains no response. I bring my knees closer and push myself up, believing that to be enough. I feel the cold air of the room rush underneath me, and the sudden reminder of my exposure now, for Phil to see, makes me turn red again.

“I know this isn’t what it’s meant for,” he mutters, his voice getting closer to me - I guess he’s stop working now. “But I hope it works either way. I’m eager to see what you’ll do with it, anyway.”

That doesn’t help my nerves.  _What I will do?_ What is he implying? There hasn’t been much throughout all this that has involved me actually  _doing_ something: it’s always been him acting on me. So what on earth could this be?

“So…?” he encourages. “Go on…” I feel the whip touch the base of my spine and it starts to press down, pushing my hips down to the floor. I don’t resist it, knowing there would be no point, and I allow myself back down. My cock suddenly comes into contact with something that certainly isn’t the floor and I jump up, squealing. Phil forces my hips down again, pressing me against it. “Don’t fight it. This is for you, okay? It won’t hurt you.”

Forgetting, I allow myself a glance behind me - only a quick one, because once I’ve caught a glimpse, in shock, I turn right back. It's… a machine. A small metal box, between my feet, with a pole running up between my legs. So that means… this plastic, rubbery  _thing_ …

“Use it,” he orders. I can’t bear to look up at him. “Please yourself with it.”

I whine, trembling, reluctant.

“You asked for relief.” I can picture the frown on his face. “You liked the contact. Won’t this feel good?”

_Probably_ , I think, feeling my heart race.  _But you’re watching me._

He’s quiet for a while. Then I hear him move away.

“Fine: I won’t watch, okay?” His voice travels to the far reaches of the room. “I’m facing the wall. I’m not even listening. I’ll just wait until you’re done.”

At that, at the relief of not being watched, this  _thing_  beneath me begins to seem very appealing. I am desperate, after all. Without even realising, I find my hips gently starting to rock against it, and the contact, however small, is immediately satisfying. Right away, I can’t bring myself to stop: it just feels right. So I let myself continue. Gently, slowly, I grind into it, enjoying the satisfaction it brings. It isn’t long before I’m whimpering, only quietly, into the emptiness of this room. I keep my eyes closed, letting myself focus on this well-needed relief and my self-consciousness slowly drips away. I allow my lips to part, ignoring the cloth gag between them, allow my noises to escape and knowing they won’t be heard. I practically smile: I’m enjoying myself.

And then he chuckles.

“Well, look at you,” his voice creeps into my ear -  _right_ against my ear. A cold chill rushes through me at the sound and my whole body freezes. I feel dread, like the urge to vomit, filling me. “You really were desperate. You look… what’s the word…  _slutty_?”

I scrunch my eyes up tightly. I feel so stupid. How had I believed him, that he wouldn’t watch me? I didn’t even check!

“Oh, don’t stop on my account,” he taunts. But I don’t dare move. He scoffs. “Shame. You looked really good, enjoying yourself like that. It made me all hot too.”

My first reaction to that is disgust - what a pervert this Remnant is; probably a lot older than me too. But then I remember, how could I ever forget?

_“The desires of the body are completely separate to me - they are the body’s - the living’s - alone.”_

If his body reacted to me like that, is that really him?

I throw the thought out of my mind. I’m going crazy and I know I am. There’s no point trying to be rational when my logic isn’t sound anymore.

He pushes the machine away, letting me finally relax against the floor again. But I can’t quite relax: I’m still hard, moreso than before, and I don’t know what else this Remnant plans to do with me.

He starts humming to himself again, thinking I suppose, as he pushes my thighs slightly further apart. I hold back any noise that wants to escape in my confusion. He pauses, waits, and moves away from me again.

“I hope you’re ready for this,” he says, still in that drone of a hum. He seems to be pulling out drawers, chuckling to himself at certain points, but I won’t dare look. I want to get all this over and done with now. I want to all to end and I don’t want to think too much about it as if happens. I want to be able to forget it once it’s over and the Remnant is finally gone. “To be honest, I’ve really never attempted anything like this before. But it looks like  _Phil_ knows more than enough to make it work.”  _Huh?_  What does that mean? Why does he have to bring up Phil again?

I hear him kneel down beside me, making my body tense in blind preparation. A bottle pops open. Silence. My heart starts thudding in my chest. I wish I could escape, but that’s never been more than a dream for me. I still don’t know if I can walk.

“Now,” he warns me. “Don’t tense.”

I instantly untense, blindly following his orders, and before I have any time to panic he already has a finger inside me.

My stomach drops when I realise what’s going on, and some vague noise of panic threatens to climb out of my throat.

“Shh,” he soothes me, anticipating this. “This won’t hurt. Don’t be scared.” That’s weird. He’s never wanted me  _not_ to be scared before; he’s always revelled in my fear. That’s the part he loves the most! Unless… unless this isn’t something on its own. Maybe this is just  _prep_ , in his head. That scares me more than the activity itself.

He works another finger inside, and I keen at that. Still, he shushes me back, reminding me not to tense. It’s hard to keep still most of the time, let alone when you have to be relaxed - it feels more vulnerable that way. I allow my eyes to open, for the first time in a while: the room is still bright, as it always is, it’s just that this angle is strange. I allow myself reassurance in the fact that I will never be in this position ever again, never to be reminded of the strange things Phil’s possessed body has done to me here. Eyes closed, this could be happening anywhere: eyes open, these events will never leave this spot. At least, that’s what I hope for. I wish, if only, eyes closed meant my captor would be faceless.

His fingers don’t do much. They barely move, really, besides the necessary, and withdraw. I don’t allow myself any sigh of relief because I’m already expecting what’s next to come.

“Are you still hard?” he mumbles, playing with something behind me. I gently shake my head. I’ve been allowed time to calm down now, though I haven’t quite recovered completely just yet. “Well, we’ll see what this does to you then.”

He disappears again, all feeling of him gone from my body. I hear a bottle open again, then more silence, and then I finally feel it: exactly as expected. I gasp into my gag as he works the thing inside me.

“Does it hurt?” he asks, to which I don’t reply. I can’t bring myself to recognise reality now. This scene can’t be reality. Needless, he continues, pressing it in until it can’t go any further. He mumbles a little, incoherently, to himself, before sounding a switch, and it slowly starts to move - slowly out of me, only to the tip, and slowly back in. It doesn’t take long to get used to. Rather, I fear taking it out would leave me feeling oddly empty.

He sighs, content, and sits down beside me - the side of my sight. “How is it?” he asks, genuinely sounding very curious. But he isn’t looking at me: he’s watching the machine. I don’t know which would feel more exposing and weird. I don’t answer his question - I’m still gagged, after all. “I’ve never seen one of these before. Sex is a whole new world to me. It’s amazing how much the living think about it, really. There are whole shops for it right on the streets, right beside your food and clothes.” His eyes move to mine. “Is that really how important sex is to you?”

I flush at the question. How am I supposed to know? Sex has two different purposes: pleasure and procreation. I have nothing to do with the latter. I guess the living do make out sex to be this great, important thing. It’s never been  _that_ important to me, personally. I never got far enough with anyone. If anything, late 2009 seemed to be the time when I thought it would finally happen for me. I was head-over-heels for Phil but I could never do anything about it. We were friends, and I couldn’t risk messing that up by being horny. Phil didn’t seem interested in relationships at all, let alone guys. After that, I was never interested in going after anyone else. I guess the Remnant was right: I’ve wanted Phil, all this time; it never went away.

If Phil knows that now, what will happen to us? Things won’t go back to the way they were before. I don’t think anything will be the same. He probably won’t be able to be around me anymore.

Shamefully, the first thought that comes to mind, at such a tragedy, is to appreciate what I have now. I can finally have Phil, for a short period of time, in the way I’ve always wanted. Since it’s going to happen anyway, why hate it? Since this is the end for us, I should savour this time, and let myself go mad afterwards.

I finally realise, when I come to, that all that time I was thinking I never took my eyes off him. He’s almost frowning at me, but curiosity shines in his eyes all the same. He looks on the verge of something. I glance down, briefly, and find myself surprised to see an erection in his trousers.

I’m getting breathless now. Strange. I’m hard again, I know I am - I can’t ignore how hot it feels beneath me. It feels constricted and horribly frustrated. My body isn’t being done justice, not by this machine. It feels like a lame replacement. It doesn’t stimulate, only simulate.

Ah. I know why I’m hard now. It’s because of Phil.

My mouth starts spewing whimpers - only small, quiet ones, like bubbles from a boiling pan. But it’s not because of anything physical: it’s what’s in my mind.  _Mind over body_ comes back to me, and I take that version to be true, though I suspect the Remnant to believe the opposite. The plain machine does nothing much - but, integrated with my thoughts, of relief, and Phil, suddenly I’m desperate.

The Remnant, watching me carefully, suddenly reaches forwards towards me, and, keeping our eyes locked, slips his fingers into my mouth and pulls away the cloth. From then on, my mouth can’t close - I continue to pant, only subtly, with the odd whimper intermixed. I can see him going red. This isn’t how the Remnant usually behaves. This really is new to him. I feel, looking at him, the urge for him to laugh in that awkward, sudden way he does, that lets me know he’s watching me with amusement. Even, at least, for the grin to appear. But neither do. He’s dead serious. I don’t know whether to be scared of that, but he looks just as unsure himself. I feel, as well, the need for him to say something - some odd, creepy comment to make my toes twist up, or a question that I will never answer. That doesn’t happen either.

He jumps up suddenly and kicks the machine away, leaving me feeling weird. I was right - there’s an odd sort of emptiness that remains after such treatment. Silence grows throughout the room again - no, not quite silence, there are the mumblings of something: his voice, perhaps, a bottle, and something tearing. I can’t quite tell - my neck can’t twist that far.

My hips are gripped and I’m thrown over, now facing the ceiling. My mind spins for a moment in confusion; I had gotten so used to that position. Above me, he looks strange: he looks red, or at least very hot, not just in his face but all over. He’s stripped himself of his clothes so he matches me. I can’t recall if I’ve ever really seen him this unclothed before.

He doesn’t look at me - no, he’s preoccupied. I don’t have much time to figure out what by before he’s pushed my thighs apart and suddenly Phil’s inside me.

I gasp in surprise, tightening my fingers together above my head. I didn’t expect this to happen so soon. Now that we’re here, I wasn’t prepared for this at all. My mind already starts to spin, reality surely warping: I can’t grasp what’s happening. But, regardless, it’s happening.

My toes clench, helpless, as he moves, thrusting into me with quick, desperate motions. I wonder how hard he really had become. His face is contorted, straining with the effort I guess, and he’s already sweating. He’s bright red all over. Beneath me, my jaw is practically locked open, with pants and gasps and the occasional moan slipping out of my mouth. Sometimes, he grunts, and every single one causes a hot flush to rush through my body, spinning my mind even more. I’m hard, ridiculously so, now, and I no longer want to escape. My wrists struggle in their restraint, driven by a sudden urge to reach out of him - wrap around him, pull him closer, grip onto him - I’m not sure what.

Suddenly, strangely, his face softens: the tensions previously tightening his face seem to disappear, and in their place is a kind of tranquillity. Instantly, my heart jumps in my chest, and my mouth utters a sudden and unexpected:  _“Phil!”_

His eyes catch mine. He’s finding it hard to focus, and I can sympathise. His closes them again but the softness doesn’t go away this time.

“ _Dan…_ ” Phil moans just as softly. I feel my body latch onto it and refusing to let go. I whine out his name again, like a call-and-response, and from that point on our voices fail us.

I feel light-headed now. I know I’m close. I think that brief over-excitement has worn me out. I don’t know why this feels so good; it surprises me. I wonder if I’ve truly lost my mind now, dreaming that Phil might resurface. My legs, either side of his body, bend at the knees and wrap around him, securing him with me. I wish I could do the same with my arms. My back arches - a moan leaves my mouth - and I know I won’t take long. I wonder how long Phil has, too.

I come suddenly, unprepared, back arching and almost clicking as the heat of climax rushes through me. I never really knew that such stimulation - such sex - could feel so good. He isn’t long after; I think, perhaps, my reaction dragged him over.

He falls backwards once he’s done, landing on his bare bum on the carpeted floor. For a while, all either of us do is breathe heavily and loudly, open-mouthed, into the now hot air of the room. My body feels very strange now, in a way it never has before. I lift my head to look at him: he’s definitely spent, completely covered in sweat, especially his fringe, and whilst he pants - attempting to get his breath back - he runs a hand through his hair. His expression is still just as soft as before, but now it does start to twist, as if deep in a serious thought. I watch him carefully and I wonder: who is that before me? Is it still the Remnant, looking less composed than I’ve ever seen him; or could it truly be Phil, back to the surface for a brief, fleeting moment - or, could it be longer? Maybe he’s back for good.

He turns his head to me, finally, making eye contact. I’m still short for breath. He stares at me… and a smile crowds his face.

“Well…” he laughs breathily. “ _Well…_  that was certainly new.” He removes the rubber from himself, discards it, and stands himself up. “Come - we should wash up.”

I feel my heart drop into my stomach, knowing I shouldn’t have allowed myself such stupid hopefulness.

My wrists are unchained from the radiator but rechained in front of me again -  _yep, definitely the Remnant_  - and he carries me, bridal-style this time, to the bathroom. In the shower, the closes the door on both of us and lets the water run colder than usual - our bodies are still very warm from our last… well,  _activity_ , I suppose. Though I doubt that one was planned. He holds the shower head in his hand and guides the water over me, rinsing me off, and himself as well. He works in a little soap and shampoo, just to be sure. Whilst he does all this, I keep my head turned away, feeling that familiar shameful feeling creeping up through my body again. Not only is it shame for what has just occurred, and for how much I enjoyed it, but shame as well for my hopelessness and self-deception. I concede I must be mad. It’s the only thing I’ll let myself believe anymore.

As he rinses out the shampoo from my hair, he brings a hand up to work through it, ensuring everything gets washed away. I keep my eyes down as he does, wishing I could ignore him completely. Oddly, silently, he puts the shower head down, and brings his other hand to my head as well. As his fingers lay on my neck, and his thumbs on my cheeks, I look up at him again, wondering what he’s doing: he’s got that look again, that softness that doesn’t look like the Remnant at all. He’s staring at me - inspecting me, I guess - but he hasn’t done that before. Suddenly, he brings me forwards, and, for the first time, he kisses me.

My heart leaps into my throat. This is strange. He has no reason to kiss me like this. At first, I fear some malevolent motive, like he might bite down on my lip or tongue, but I realise that nothing like that could be on his mind right now: he’s being too soft. It feels like, to my lips, he’s wanted to do this for a while. It can’t be the Remnant, surely. But what else could it be? He pulls back briefly, breathing in, and kisses me again, and, impulsively, I find myself not only allowing it but almost reciprocating. It seems natural to do so, and I excuse myself that way.

When he finally pulls away, he doesn’t move very far. When I try bringing myself away, his hands let me move, which for some reason I wasn’t expecting. Looking at him, his face is blank, eyebrows converging slightly in his typical mode of thought. His eyes, especially, are blank, and I can tell he’s not really seeing me. He brings his bottom lip almost absentmindedly into his mouth, and, then, lets out a quiet contemplative hum.

His hands withdraw.

“Let’s have food,” he proclaims, standing up again to end our shower.

We spend an awkward while having food together, at the dining table like usual. We sit at opposite ends and he moves the cuffs to my ankles, like always, just to make sure I can’t go anywhere: he can never be too careful, I’ve concluded, especially after the lock changes, stabbing, sole-splitting, and general chaperoning. But I wonder why. It’s not like I would instantly go to the police and have him put in jail. He’s a Remnant: the minute I get out, he’ll leave Phil’s body. He’d probably come after me and drag me back himself. My heart drops to my stomach again with sudden dread: he’d probably kill Phil right away. I shake away the thought. It’s not like that could ever happen anyway. Besides: this Remnant doesn’t have long left. Must only be a few hours now.

He carries me back - bridal style still, since we’re still unclothed (the koala-like style would be far more impractical) - to the room, kicks the door shut, and brings us both to that familiar little chair.

“There’s just one more thing I ask of you, Dan,” he tells me seriously. He adjusts me on his lap so that my legs dangle either side of his. “You see, we only have a few more hours left of our playtime.” I nod, trying to distract myself from the word  _playtime_. “So this is the last thing we will do together. Do you understand?” Again, I nod - has he ever asked me that before? He smiles. “Good. I want to do it again, then; one more time.” Discomfort grows in my stomach, one I’m painfully used to: there’s no point pretending I don’t know what he means. “It’s okay - I’ll stretch you, and I’ll make sure to be safe. But this time…” He grips my hips tightly. “I want you to do the work.”

I gulp, but nod again, assuming he’ll ask me otherwise.

He retrieves the bottle he had appropriately placed beside the chair and covers his fingers well: strangely, at the sight, I’m not as alarmed as I feel I should be. Before, I wasn’t facing him, making this whole scene very different. I feel like I could try and run, if I wanted - just jump right off his lap at any moment and scatter away. But, instead, I stay still, watching with slow breaths as his fingers disappear behind me.

When the first one enters me, I feel a sudden noise creep up in my throat, but it doesn’t quite make it out. My arms, wrapped around his neck, tense slightly, anticipating. Meanwhile, he leans his head over my shoulder, looking down at his work.

“It hasn’t been long since the last time,” he mumbles probably to himself. “So this might not take long.”

He slips the second in, as if to emphasise his point.

I wonder if I should feel scared now. I know, rationally, I probably should be: I should be crying and trying to run and begging him to stop. But I don’t feel like doing any of those things. I feel like getting this over with. I feel like waiting it out. It doesn’t feel like I have a choice, anyway.

“Stop tensing,” he warns me. His left arm wraps around my waist to hold me close. I hadn’t realised I was doing it, but, conscious of it now, I oblige, at the same time burying my face into my arm.

I still feel tired. I’m slightly grateful that this activity wakes the body up, because otherwise I fear I would fall asleep right here, in his lap, and god knows what he’d do to me then. I wonder if he’ll let me rest after this - we have a few hours left, after all. He will need to sleep too, right? Didn’t he say he was bound to the body’s needs? Well, he’s also stronger in it, so maybe he doesn’t need to sleep as much as me.

I feel his fingers curl within me, which grabs my attention. What could he be doing now? I’m already stretched enough, right? He seems to be humming to himself again - I guess he’s thinking about something. Why does his humming always sound either like a never-ending drone or some sort of joyous melody? What goes on in that head? How much does the Remnant think? I wonder, for the first time, if Phil gets any say in all this. If he’s aware, does he still think? Are their thoughts intermixed? I can hardly think myself right now: I’m still desperate to get some sleep.

“Maybe…” he mumbles to himself, and I wonder why. Is he talking to himself? His fingers suddenly press against something very particular inside me and my body flinches at the feeling - a hot burst of pleasure rushes through me at its touch, and a shocked gasp jumps out of my mouth. He lets out a laugh. “Yep. Thought so.”

“W-wait - ” I gasp, not ready for such a feeling again.

I go ignored - obviously, he’s very interested in this - and as he finds the spot again I jerk in his hold, wrapping my arms tighter round his neck. I let out a little groan, tired and helpless to the feeling, and eventually, supposedly satisfied, the fingers withdraw.

I let my body relax, as much as it can, as he prepares himself. I keep my head down, looking over Phil’s shoulder, as I wait for the inevitable. For some reason, his breath already sounds as short as mine. I don’t dare look over at him though - best not give him any wrong ideas from my end.

“You’re already hard,” he whispers by my ear, making a chill run down my spine. “Did that really feel so good?” I don’t answer.

His hands grab my hips, lifting me up, and he carefully brings me onto him. My eyes scrunch closed, trying to get used to it, but how ever will I - when this is Phil I’m on top of?

“Now,” he mutters, pressing his lips against my neck. “Move.”

Nervously, embarrassed, and keeping my eyes tightly closed, I obey: I rock myself on top of him, lifting myself subtly up and down to simulate him moving within me. I let my head drop onto his shoulder, into my arms, as a small groan escapes me at the new feeling. It’s far different from the passive role I previously played: this time, I’m the one causing this to happen - to a degree. I wonder why he’s so hard now, and so soon - since when was he hard? What aroused him so quickly like this?

“Dan,” he says slightly huskily. His hand reaches for the back of my head, grips my hair, and tugs it up before him. “Head up,” he demands, though it’s not like I have a choice in that. Before my eyes drift away, wishing he wouldn’t look at me, I can’t help but be acutely aware of how much he’s staring at me. His expression… it’s unreadable. It’s not quite blank, it’s just unfamiliar. He’s clearly not displeased, but I can’t tell how much he likes it. So why… why does he keep staring at me?

The hand in my hair relaxes, and, instead of keeping my head up for him to look at, he brings me into him, for the second time bringing our lips together. He kisses me softly - it takes me so much by surprise that my body stops moving. With that, he pulls briefly away, and pushes my hips back down with his hands.

“Keep going,” he orders, with a little smirk. So, trembling, I oblige, and he continues to kiss me.

I feel like a hot bubble builds around us, swelling - no, shrinking, moulding to our bodies, to our shape, as we are combined. It makes me burn up all over: my face, worst of all. I feel the transition between this being an awkward act to it starting to feel good, and when that point comes my breaths become short and I can’t seem to stop my hips from continuing it if I really wanted to.

His hands slip up from my hips and up my back, trusting me to keep going without the lingering threat; I feel his fingers, getting hotter against my already burning skin, slip up the back of my neck and into my hair - he doesn’t fist it, grip it, or try to control it. He’s merely playing through it.

“Maybe…” he gasps, obviously short of breath himself, “I should have told you sooner…” He gently knocks my head into his shoulder and I moan softly in gratitude, letting myself relax against him as my body continues to rock. “The Remnant may be present throughout the entire body - twisted round the muscles and nerves, and thread through the blood stream, even wrapped around and through the brain. But that isn’t how we control it. The only thing we Remnants can influence is the soul - why else can we only possess the Living?”

My ears feel numb. I wonder if I’m truly listening. I’m trying, of course I am, but there are more prominent things to concern myself with.

“It’s the -  _ah_  - the free will. That’s the only way we can control them,” he struggles out. I even feel his fingers tighten in my hair. “If we can’t, we can’t even remain in the body. So all this…  _mmh…_ It’s only ever possible because the host allows it. The host… is the one… who executes… it all…” His head falls against my shoulder - he’s starting to pant. “So many victims are always so willing,” he says with a chuckle.

Oh.

No.  _No way_. I can’t have head that right.

I pull my head up, heart pounding, desperate to know. I can’t possibly be right.

But, at the sight, my eyes widen.

_So that’s why_ , I realise at last.  _That’s why the speech, at the start - he couldn’t decide whether to be Phil or the Remnant. That’s why he seemed so much like Phil, before anything of this began, why I didn’t suspect a thing. That’s why he has Phil’s memories. That’s why he’s connected to the body - to its needs and desires -_

But… but that means… if the body wanted this… if the will of the host allowed it… then…

I stare at him. And Phil stares back.

“ _Dan_ ,” he cries. I see his eyes start to well with tears, and his mouth try to smile.

Tears fall onto my cheeks straight away, and my hands tighten into the flesh of his shoulders. “Phil!” I squeal. He’s here. He’s really here!

I tighten my arms round his body and bury my head into his neck, hugging him as tightly and warmly as I can. He’s back. I have him back.

“Dan…” he cries, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t - ”

I shush him sharply and hug him tighter. “Don’t,” I warn, unable to stop my tears. “It’s okay.”

Phil’s hands drop to my back and wrap cautiously around me. “Dan…” he sighs. “Sorry, but… but  _please_ …”

He leads me with his hands, encouraging me to keep moving, and I find a shot of something sudden racing through me like fear. This is Phil now. How can I keep doing this?

No, I’m wrong. Of course: this has been Phil all along. He’s been the one who reacted to me first, the one who was desperate to touch me, and got hard from me in such a state. He’s the one who encouraged the Remnant to explore this new world, all for mine and Phil’s desires. It hasn’t been the Remnant with me on this chair at all - it was always,  _always_ , Phil.

So I wrap my arms around his neck and continue to rock my body on his lap.

The rest of that scene becomes a blur to me. The adrenaline, the impossibility, the epiphany and relief and fear that hit me all at once left me dizzy. That warm bubble grew larger, enveloping me in my vulnerability, and I had no choice but to succumb to it. I wonder, as my breaths all fall away from me, and my limbs become autonomous and out of my control, if this is what it feels like to be possessed by a Remnant. I wonder, for a briefer moment, if I now am: could it have switched between us? Is Phil finally and truly free?

We kiss - I know that much - until our breaths fail us and we can kiss no longer. I grip his skin tightly until I’m sure I leave bruises. My whole body shivers as my back arches at just the right angle for my whole body to be rendered helpless and instead possessed by something good with every motion. I feel defenceless, but somehow filled, and no longer scared. I feel like this is where I was always meant to be - possessed entirely by Phil.

It feels strange to hear him calling my name, especially in such a state - such a tone - such a  _voice_. I don’t think the Remnant ever did that. But then again: what was the Remnant’s true role in this last day? Wasn’t most of it Phil? Did its power diminish as Phil’s desires overcame him, and he gained control himself?

Once we finish, and Phil’s mouth still utters my name over and over into my ear. I watch my vision fail me, and, unable to catch my breath, I feel my consciousness slip away from under me.

_“Aren’t you happy?” Phil asks me softly, laying me down on his bed and kissing me. My heart flutters within my chest._

_“Yes,” I answer with total confidence. My hands wrap round his neck to keep him close, feeling our breaths intertwining. “I’m very happy.”_

_He smiles. “Then was it worth it?” he asks, tilting his head. “Was all the torture worth such an outcome?”_

_That stops me. Was it? Would I ever had gained Phil any other way? What’s to say we’ll keep with each other after this?_

_My hesitation seems to upset him: he raises his hand, gripping a knife, and sharply cuts open my throat -_

I flinch awake, startled, and struggling to catch my breath. My hand instantly moves to my throat, out of instinct: intact. I breathe out a sigh of relief.

I open my eyes. Phil is there, right in front of me - no,  _around_ me. His arms have wrapped around my body and hold me close, as limp as they may be as he sleeps.  _Sleep_ , I think _, he’s sleeping._ Has he slept yet until now? Right now, with his eyes closed and expression relaxed, I can see Phil. It makes the corners of my lips twitch, desperate to allow a smile - and I let them. I feel warm in here, in his hold, more than I ever had before. It feels oddly safe: a feeling I never thought I would experience again, especially not with Phil. But now I can see - I can distinguish between Phil and the Remnant. And here, right now, before me, lies only Phil. I feel utterly relieved: the Remnant has finally gone. For the first real time, I truly feel alone. And I bask in it. Having only Phil’s unconscious presence with me has never made me happier.

I reach my hand slightly forwards and find Phil’s - still, limp, and yet still so warm - and I cautiously slip my fingers between his. I grip them, never wanting to let go. I can’t help but smile: I feel so happy.

That time, I fall asleep feeling safe and never happier.

When I wake again, it isn’t any brighter, but Phil’s fingers play through my hair. I think I can vaguely hear him mumbling to himself, but I can’t make anything out. I wonder if it’s about me. I shake that from my mind - though he is playing with my hair, so I let the curiosity play on instead.

“Dan,” he whispers, attempting to rouse me. “Wake up. I want to see you.”

Unable to help it, I break into a smile, excited for this first morning with such a relationship with Phil. He giggles back, and, before I can truly rouse, he brings his lips against my own.

I submit to it, enjoying it, feeling my body weaken at such a touch. I feel myself growing dizzy again: how can this be real? I feared separation, trauma, never seeing each other again. I fear our lives being torn apart and ruined, tainted by such an unexplainable event. But instead… instead he’s kissing me. How can this be real?

His lips part slightly and at the implication I feel my cheeks grow red, but I don’t stop him: I part my own lips and his tongue slips between them, finding mine, and I buckle - with a little moan - at such a touch. His mouth is so warm. I could lose myself in this - I am, of course I am, already losing myself. Was I always so vulnerable and easy when it came to Phil?

Something cold starts to fill my mouth, like salt water, but when I try to move away Phil’s grips my hair tight, keeping us together.  _Oh god_ , it isn’t a liquid - it feels so much more solid than that. It starts to slip down my throat and I gag, trying to push myself away. Phil’s body is tense against mine, and I see, when I finally open my eyes, that his eyes, even the whites, are fully black, and all the veins that I can see are tainted just the same. But, as this  _thing_  crawls deeper inside me, invading my lungs and my stomach ( _oh god, I can feel it worm through my intestines_ ), the black drains out of his veins, as if flowing, instead, into mine.

I can’t believe I was so foolish. I should have known he could act just like Phil. How had I not realised that leaving Phil’s body meant swapping into mine?

My head starts to flood with a chill like brain freeze, and I feel myself being pushed into the dark back seats of my own mind. All this time, I kept wondering what it might be like to be possessed: it’s like I was asking for it.

A strange new voice within my head starts to chuckle.  _Well,_ it practically grins.  _Are we ready for round two?_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot promise when Part Three will be released - it is still being written. Hopefully, you will have it by next Tuesday, but I can make no promises :(


	4. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been around for centuries. I know about the mind, the body, and the soul, and the many ways they can all be broken. I’ve been bored for a long time, and all I want to do is have some fun. I want to wreak havoc, even just a little, and you will help me do it: all I need is a body or two.”
> 
> Summary: Now the Remnant has moved onto Dan as its host, and Phil is its new prey. But this isn’t the same as last time. Tensions build, the torture doesn’t seem so mild anymore, and a dark foreboding cloud swells in Phil’s mind as their end fate no longer seems so hopeful. The two, somehow, must find some way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part Four will be posted next Tuesday!

 

**WN: strong language, hostage/prisoner situation, spiritual possession (see Remnants - Skulduggery Pleasant series), restraint, torture, gore and blood, emotional manipulation, conflicting non-con/smut (+ biting, vampirism), threats of death, mutilation, knives**

There’s a clock in the corner of the room. It ticks at every second that goes by. It’s like a heartbeat: each tick is meant to sound the same -  _tick, tick, tick, tick_  - but, for some strange unexplainable reason, the second tick always sounds a little different -  _tick, tock, tick, tock_. Even if I change the order, if I skip a  _tick_ , if I start on the  _tock_ , the sounds reverse -  _tick, tock_ , rather than  _tock, tick_. I no longer know which is the original  _tick_  and which the  _tock_. I can hardly keep in mind that, actually, neither is a  _tock_ at all. The  _tock_ possesses one of the  _ticks_ at a time, to forever continue the cycle.

I focus on this, as meticulous as it is, to keep myself away from the  _tock_ in the room.

“I have to say,” it laughs. “The black looked better on you: your paleness is a real compliment.” I can hear it frowning, disappointed. “This tan is too lively for it. Oh well! That’s not important.”

His footsteps reach me and I hear him kneel before me. I keep my eyes shut and my head down so I can keep focusing on the clock.

It’s silent for a while.

“You can’t keep doing this, you know?” he reprimands with a strict tone - a tone that voice shouldn’t ever hold. “You of all people should know you can’t ignore me.”

Alas, I keep trying. I can hear the ticking growing distant, though, the more that he talks, and the closer he gets. It’s like his mere presence blocks it out, leaving it muffled, or, even worse, as a figment of my imagination. Perhaps the ticking isn’t even real. I don’t remember there being a ticking in here before.

His hand grabs my chin and tugs my body forwards - my wrists lock, held back by the cuffs behind the chair, and my top-half lurches awkwardly like a hunch. Alarmed, my eyes shoot open, but once I see that face - that once so familiar, now tainted, face - I quickly shut them again. I don’t want to ruin that face as much as I - as  _it -_ already has.

I must remind myself that  _that_ is how he is referred. This is no longer Dan before me - that is what I will convince myself, no matter what I really know.

He -  _it_  - grins at me. I can feel it. “You’re blushing,” he teases. I know he’s lying - if anything, I’m only red. “You’re thinking about him again, aren’t you?”

My body begins to tremble. Why does it have to know about that? Why did it have to take me first?

At least now, with my mind and thoughts free of intrusion again, I can let myself be selfish.

He -  _it_ , fuck - sits there for a while without saying anything, and, after a stretch of nothing, I feel a finger reach round the gag in my mouth and carefully pull it out. It sits round my neck instead, feeling gross against my skin, and with it gone I shut my mouth again, tight. I hear it scoff.

“You should also know better than anyone that you shouldn’t disobey me,” it warns. I don’t remember it demanding anything from me, though, but I realise the order was non-verbal: I already know what it wants.

“Look at me.” My heart drops. My reluctance builds even more, but I know how futile it is. I eventually open my eyes again at his request: he’s suppressing the black from showing, that’s the first thing I notice. But I kind of wish he wouldn’t - I wish he wouldn’t look like Dan. He grins. “There. Isn’t that better? Don’t you like looking at this face?” I want to look away again but I can sense the threat of reprimand if I do: he’s daring me. Instead, unable to fight it just a little, my eyes wander down - away from his eyes, but still on him. I let them sit there without really looking through them.

Silence again.  _Tick, tock. Tick, tock_. They feel longer now. Each second feels twice as long.

He shuffles himself onto his knees before me, probably getting more comfortable, without a word. He leans slightly closer forward, expression sharp and scrutinising, like he’s inspecting me. I keep my eyes away from his. I feel like just looking through my eyes could give him a way into me again, if not all of me then at worst just my mind.

“It’s strange being outside of you again,” he confesses. I realise, from the way his breath hits me, that he’s too close. I try to ignore it. “Now that I know how many thoughts are in there that I can no longer access. It’s a shame.” I notice his mouth slant into a sad frown. “But I know I can get some of them out, one way or another.” It creeps into a smile again. I wish I was blindfolded now.

He drags my head down just a little further and, shockingly, briefly presses his lips against the top of my head, and then he lets me go. My face instantly burns red and I turn it away. The ticking of the clock is overrun in my head by the incessant thudding of my own heart.

I hate this. I hate that he knows. He’s going to behave just like Dan would, if he discovered I had feelings for someone: he’s going to tease the hell out of me for it.

He - no,  _it_ , why can’t I remember that?! -  _it_ leaves me for a while, leaving the room, and I slump in the chair. A shiver runs through me at the thought of my entrapment. I have seen what this Remnant does to people - I’ve seen its memories, and what it made me do to Dan - and now I’m terrified. With Dan, it was different: he was the first, and he wanted to mislead him. But I’ve been stuck in his mind, this Remnant, so I know its plans. I’ve seen them relayed over and over again, like a looping film, and now we’re trapped it in next. It can’t trick me like it did with Dan. But that means I’ve lost all hope.

The clock keeps on ticking through the silence. I feel it invading my thoughts, slipping into my head, never letting me rest in silence. It reminds me that time still plays on, every second wasting away, another second closer to that Remnant coming back, to its next torture. My wrists struggle in their restraints, knowing I won’t escape, not even trying - only trying to break out of this deceiving inertia that shames me for giving in. But I know there is no choice. My head hangs limply like a corpse’s, admitting defeat. Time is so short. How wasteful I’ve been.

It returns, humming happily to itself and kneeling down in front of me. I glance down at him, this imposter - no, it really is Dan, I can’t trick myself of that - and watch him nervously. He has a silver bowl of something clear and has placed it carefully down in between us. Could that really be water?

“Don’t look!” he seethes, shooting his hand up and waving my head away. I comply instantly without even thinking about it, turning my head to the side.

I feel like vomiting. Every act of submission, of weakness, feels like shame. It feels like failure. It feels tainting. And it’s because I know I’ve given in: it’s all I can do now.

He stands up and walks himself behind me, and I tell myself to keep looking away just in case that order hasn’t finished yet. Both his hands lightly touch the temples of my head and lead it straight again, and then he’s bringing a light black cloth over my eyes - at which, I gulp. He fastens it tightly round the back of my head and whistles to himself in contentment.

“There,” he says, obviously grinning. He places his hands on my shoulders, gently bringing my body back against the chair - I would say to relax me, if this wasn’t the situation. Instead I can feel my heart’s pounding quicken within my ribcage. “Are you ready to begin?”

Helplessly, I gulp.

He squeezes my shoulder suddenly and I flinch, cursing myself for it afterwards. “I really have been looking forward to this, you know: being in your head, learning all about you. I like being able to tailor this experience just right, and, after rummaging through your mind, I know all the best spots.” He says with a laugh, which I know means dread for me. But what can he mean by that, exactly?  _The best spots_. Does that mean my body, or my mind, or is he thinking more visually, mapping out ideas in his head? From what I’ve seen between him and Dan, he does like to twist his words to play with his prey. Perhaps he doesn’t mean anything by it, really: perhaps it’s only intended to freak me out.

He reaches a hand round my neck and brings the cloth gag back into my mouth. My heart races in my chest: why all the restraints? What could he possibly be planning? I’m desperate to know what’s in that bowl.

I wonder what kinds of things he’ll want to do. With Dan, he focused a lot on asphyxiation - will I be getting the same treatment? No, surely not. He said he’d tailor it to me. Well, what do I fear the most? What methods of torture torment me worst? Even I can’t work that out. So how can this Remnant? How powerful really he is?

My head hurts. Having him - having  _it_  - leave my body again has really left me ragged. I feel strangely worn out within myself, like I’m not quite used to having control anymore. My brain feels the most worn - I think that’s where its influence was mostly centred. I felt like that was where most of  _it_  was situated, wrapped tightly round and through my brain. It feels like it throbs, or shakes, within my own head. In a way - in a sordid, twisted sort of way - I kind of wish it back, just to hold me together again.

He’s moved around to the front of the chair now, but that’s I can tell. I can’t see what he’s doing anymore - and that’s pretty much the only thing I  _could_  do, before.

He chuckles. “Once this is done, you can leave that chair, you know? Won’t that be nice?”

His fingers appear on my ankle and lift up my foot. I try to keep it limp and pliant, in fear that moving it may result in more pain than necessary, or at least more severe damage.

“Though…” he hums, considering. I don’t like that tone of thought. “I always like to be safe. Maybe just one other thing. Now,” he sings, holding my ankle tightly. “Deep breath, okay?”

My heart pounds relentlessly against my ribs, desperate for escape, but I know there’s nothing I can do.

He brings my foot down and I feel the sole hit some liquid - could that be the bowl? It’s warm…

Oh fuck. No, it’s hot. It’s  _boiling_!

I scream into the gag and impulsively try to yank my foot away, but his grip is tight - he’s not letting me free myself. My toes clench tightly into themselves, unable to bear the pain - I can feel my flesh scorching at the surface. Without words I beg for it to stop - who knows what this will do to my foot?

“Keep still,” he warns, squeezing my ankle. “Or I’ll force more of it under.”

My whole leg tenses but I try to obey, knowing he means it. With that, tears hit my blindfold, already resenting this predicament.

He finally lifts my foot up, but the burning doesn’t fade completely, and he gently dabs it down with a towel.

 _Shit_. It hurts. It really hurts. I don’t think I can do this.

“There,” he sighs, content. “Good boy.” I flinch at the pet name. It feels dirty, and I don’t want to be associated with it. “Feel lucky - I was considering slicing off a toe from each foot, so you’ve gotten off easy.” I wonder if he really means that. It’s not like what he said to Dan - it’s permanent damage - but I’ve seen him do it before. So yes: I’m sure he would. “Now…” He drops that foot gently down, not letting it touch the floor, and picks up the other. “The other one.”

Strangely, at the thought of that same pain again, a shiver runs through me, and, in my helpless objection, a high-pitched whine escapes my body, barely muffled by the gag. I hear the room fall into silence and I hang my head, embarrassed at making such a sound. I know he’s focusing on it: that’s why he’s not moving anymore. Eventually, he lets out a little laugh in amusement and I hear the bowl slide across the carpeted floor.

“You’re an easy one,” he mocks, almost jeering. I feel myself go red at the comment. “Always so quiet, yet vocal at just the right times.” He snickers. “Oh, won’t you be fun.”

I don’t like this. I want it to stop already. Why does he have to be so interested in how responsive I am? It’s too… violating. I feel too vulnerable under such an eye.

So this is how Dan was feeling.

Tears appear again, despair swelling inside me like a bubble, fragile enough to burst.  _Dan_. What a predicament we’re stuck in. And it’s all my fault, right? I’m the one that looked this Remnant in the eye, and caught its attention. I’m the one that made us its prey.

My other foot is brought into the boiling concoction and I cry out into my gag.

Despair thickens in my stomach, and I can’t hold back the tears. I wish it had never happened. I wish I hadn’t been so foolish. I wish me and Dan could have been okay. But now… with all that’s been done, and what’s still to come… we never will.

He dabs that one down to, mumbling some praise about me being good.

“Now then,” he taunts. “Care to thank me?”

I subtly lift my head, questioning.

“Well, I did say didn’t I? This was the nicer option. I’ve been nice to you. Aren’t you grateful for that?”

I lower my head again, not saying a word. I can think what I like now, because he can’t read me so invasively anymore. Sure, in a twisted way, I am grateful that my toes aren’t severed. But not enough to be so vocal about it.

Nevertheless, he chuckles to himself. “You really are, aren’t you?”

I feel my face turning red and I turn it away, wishing he would stop trying to read me like that.

Suddenly the chair is shoved and I’m falling backwards, my heart leaping to my throat as I crash to the ground. I cry out, confused, and in that time he manages to climb on top of me.

“You’ve had a rummage through my memories, haven’t you, big guy?” he taunts. Why the hell that nickname, of all things? “Maybe you won’t remember well, but I’ve had to perform a little procedure a few times before, with some of my previous clientele.”  _Really? ‘Clientele’?_ “The only lasting effect - well,” a chuckle, “besides the amputation of sorts - is difficulty walking. So, I thought, I want to be extra sure this time.”

His hand runs under my shirt and pushes it up - and, with that, my face grows even redder, so I turn it away.

“I checked your memories, too,” he sings, giddy all of a sudden. “You never had your appendix removed.”

My eyes widen.

“Don’t worry - ” He brings a cloth stained with something strongly odorous to my face and I choke as the fumes invade me, “ - I’ll let you sleep through this one.”

My heart thuds desperately, panicked, but I’m quickly swept under.

My head throbs heavily as I wake:  _shit_ , I really do need the sleep. Did he drug me before? I don’t want to say  _chloroform_  because that seems too cliché, but it must have been something like that.

Comfort. No chair. I'm… lying in bed?

“Ah,” he sings, making me flinch wide awake. Dan - no, the Remnant - strolls into the room holding a glass of water. He’s smiling. “You’re finally awake.”

He comes over to the bed, bringing the water with him, and leans over me: I try to jump up, away from him, but a stinging pain shoots through my abdomen. With that, he brings a hand to my chest and pushes me down again.

“No, keep still. You’re still healing.”

My heartbeat quickens. Healing… from what? What did he do?

When I look at him, for a clue, he just grins. “I told you - no more chair once the initial prep was done. From now on, you’re going to spend a lot of time here: in bed.” Eventually, he draws his hand away again, grinning ever more. “Don’t fool yourself though - there’s still so much we can do with you here.”

I turn away and pull the covers off myself, heart racing, to see, shirtless, my torso: with bandaging wrapped around my waist. Even still, I can see, on the right, the blood that has gently seeped through.

Tears well in my eyes. This is different now. Before, when everything was only temporary, it was almost okay. I could cope with my body being used to torment Dan, helplessly awaiting my own turn, because the reality of the damage didn’t seem real to me. But now… no matter what happens, this damage is permanent. I’ve been mutilated.

“Why the tears, hmm?” he hums, taking my chin in his hand and forcing me to face him. I shut my eyes so he won’t see them. “It’s not like you needed it, you know. If anything, I’ve done you a favour.”

“Shut up,” I cry. Alarm races through me after that: what did I just do? _I opposed him_? Oh god, what’ll he do to me for that?

Regardless, he just scoffs. “Interesting.”

I long to pull my head away but he won’t let me: I won’t dare another disobedience.

Silence stretches between us. Why won’t he do anything? Is he thinking about punishing me?

There’s the clock again, ticking away in the corner. Its ticking gets louder the quieter we are, until it’s almost the most prominent presence in the room. Of course, it’s always surpassed.

“Look at me.”

Begrudgingly, I oblige, frowning and opening my eyes.

His eyes are fixed on mine - powerfully so, that I have to look away. He tugs my head closer and my eyes are drawn back to him, but I turn them away again just as quickly.

He scoffs again.

“You  _really_ wish I wasn’t in this body, don’t you?”

I don’t answer, but silently agree that  _yes, I wish you were anyone but Dan._

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him grin.

“You know,” he says in a gentle, almost soothing voice, “I haven’t forgotten our last activities together. I know what happens to you when you’re this close to him, whether I’m in your body or not.” He pulls me closer. I feel, just like he says, my heart thumping heavily at the proximity. I feel my body getting warmer. I want to force myself away, but, at the same time, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want that at all. His smile slants, amused. “Don’t think I’d forget. I’m still very eager to explore this - especially from this body this time.”

I keep my gaze trained away, as much as I can feel him wanting it on him instead. But he’s right: I can’t bring myself to acknowledge how close we are. I can’t control myself when that happens, not now, not when such thoughts are so prevalent in my mind.

“Look at me,” he orders again, tightening his grip. Reluctantly, I do, still frowning ever so slightly in distress. I can’t relax like this, not with either of them so close. Who knows what this body will do to me, at any given time?

Without another word, with his eyes fixed on me, his hand on me shifts, and he brings his thumb to my lips. I realise he isn’t looking at my eyes anymore, so I allow myself to look into his, feeling stiff in confusion. The pad of his thumb - of  _Dan’s_ thumb - runs gently over my bottom lip, and when he parts them slightly I find I can’t resist. Instead, his thumb slips inside, resting lightly on my tongue: and, shamefully, without the slightest thought, my tongue moves on its own to taste it, strangely enjoying it.  _Dan’s taste_. At least, just his fingers. Why are they alone so full of flavour?

And then he laughs, so I force myself away. My faces burns an embarrassed red so I hide it in my hands.

“What do you want now anyway?” I whine, wishing to get off-topic. “Three days is a lot of time.”

He smiles and -  _finally_  - withdraws himself from the bed. “Well, this time round, I think I’ll just do whatever comes to mind. I can’t force everything of this body right off the cuff, you know? He’s taking some getting used to.”

What?  _Dan?_ What exactly does  _that_ mean? Did  _I_  take some 'getting used to’?

“So, right now,” he starts, throwing off the covers and scooping me up in his arms - to which, I let out a panicked yelp, “we’re going to have a wash.”

He carries me through to the bathroom. I try not to think about the added strength here, with that Remnant in control. That was a very odd feeling, and I’d rather not remind myself of it.

“How…” nervously, I start. “How long was I out for?”

He hums in thought. “About twelve hours. I let us have a proper rest, after those last four days.”

Oh. I guess we really do have about three days left.

He opens the shower door and drops me inside, moving quickly to shut the bathroom door too. We both know that it isn’t locked, but where am I going to go? I was there when he changed all the locks - but he blinded me, making sure I couldn’t see how they work. Even so, none of that matters - because I wouldn’t get out of this shower alone anyway.

He strips us both of the majority of our clothes and leans me carefully against the shower wall. Too much movement and my abdomen is seized with pain, so I can’t dare move. I’m trapped here now. From his trousers, he retrieves a pair of handcuffs, and he brings them to me.

“Hands behind your back,” he orders, so silently I comply, leaning slightly off the wall.

He leans towards me and reaches his hands around my waist and working on the cuffs onto my wrists. Meanwhile, to see what he’s doing, he rests his chin on my shoulder. I keep my head turned away, painfully aware of the proximity, unable to stop the effects throughout my body. Two  _clicks_  sound behind my back but he doesn’t move away. Curious, I dare a glance over to him - his eyes are on me too. I dart them back away again, cursing myself for looking.

He doesn’t tease me for that.

“Now,” he starts, placing both his hands on my knees. “We can’t have you curled up like this - I can’t reach you.” So he pushes them apart, letting me cross them instead. I look down: the soles of my bare feet stare up at me, so I flinch and look away. The burns don’t look too good. They’re red and swollen. I feel myself choke up a little at the sight. Still, he tuts. “No - the water will hurt your burns,” he murmurs, probably to himself. I guess we were thinking the same thing. “Ah! I know!” Sounding confident, he grabs my ankles instead and pulls them down either side of him, separating my legs, and he shuffles himself between them. My face instantly turns red and I try to object, but he shushes me before I can.

Soon after, without any more words, he has the showerhead in hand and has warmed the water up. He leads it over my front and my skin feels a strange chill at the feeling, unrelated to the temperature. Then, he orders me to lean forward, so I do, and he regains his previous position overlooking my back as he wets me there too. Staying there, he grabs the soap and works it into my skin - the back of my neck, my shoulder blades, and the rest of my back - to which I don’t move or make a sound. He quickly rinses all the bubbles off and leads me back against the wall. Next, he works the soap into my front. Here, discomfort swells. As he cleans my neck, he uses one hand to hold my chin and raise it, exposing as much of my throat as he can, and I hold my breath as he does it too. He cleans my shoulders and my chest with a few timid shivers from me, and when it comes to my stomach he rests a gentle hand over the scar to stop himself from touching it. For that, I am quite grateful, though I won’t thank him outright - what embarrassment that would cause me.

Next, he brings the showerhead over my thighs, and I gulp in anticipation. The rest of me was bad enough - I don’t know how to cope with him touching such a sensitive area. When I was the one the Remnant was possessing, every moment in the shower terrified me: being so close to Dan, having my hands caress his bare body for the first time, made my composure waver, and I would heat up so much from that alone. And, of course, then there was the Remnant, embarrassingly aware of all this, whose amusement I could sense from within me. I wasn’t scared that I would end doing something out of control - I was ashamed of the Remnant knowing how I felt. With him inside me, I couldn’t hide anything.

Carefully, as if aware of the sensitivity, his hands rub the soap into my skin, and I keep my head turned away from his sight to hide the redness of my face. I can’t help myself: ideas run through my head at the touch, thoughts I can’t help but think with what this Remnant surely might be thinking too, and I feel myself growing hot again. Of course, I’ve touched Dan a few times now: but he’s never touched me.

“Phil…” he hums. My heart skips a beat. “Do you remember, when I was inside you, how you’d always respond when you two got close?” My heart starts to race:  _shit_ , he’s noticed. I hate myself so much. He lets out a teasing chuckle. “Well. It seems you two aren’t so different.”

My eyes open.  _Huh?_ What’s he saying?

He lets out a low, tense sigh, and rolls his head as if to stretch. “ _Fuck…_ ” he moans. Wait -  _moans?_ “You horny…” What? Who? What’s going on with him? His fingers twitch against my legs. I’ve never known the Remnant to act like this.

He leans closer and takes my chin in his hold, forcing me to face him. My eyes widen: his face is red. Why is he red? Embarrassment? What would a Remnant have to be embarrassed about?

Suddenly, he lets out a frustrated whine and his hand moves from me to press into his own crotch, sighing in satisfaction. My eyes widen and I sharply look away, really wishing I was elsewhere right now. What the hell is that Remnant doing? Is that normal? He never did that with me, and thank god.

He falls forwards and rests his head against my chest, already moaning to himself, and I grow even redder.  _No, don’t get closer!_ From here, at least he can’t see my face - he’s just facing down.

 _Wait. Fuck_.

He chuckles.

“Phil…” he sings. He already knows. “You too?”

Panicked, I gasp out: “N-no.” But my fate is already sealed.

His hand brushes against me and I squeal, helplessly trying to snap my legs shut. My face turns bright red at that. His fingers caress me gently - the throbbing bulge in my underwear - as if I could break with the wrong touch. I flinch, unable to help it, and I whine for him to stop.

“Shh,” he encourages instead, continuing. My arms twitch behind my back, unable to do anything. He moves his head up to my shoulder, breathing heavily into my collar. “You like this. You’re already harder than before.” I cringe, but I can’t deny it.

“Stop - ” I try crying, regardless of whether he’ll listen. His hand slips under my underwear and wraps around me, and I flinch, gasping at the touch. Another whine escapes my mouth and my eyes squeeze tightly shut. This can’t be happening. How can this be happening? What is that Remnant thinking?

No. Don’t be foolish, Phil, you know what this means. That  _Remnant_ isn’t thinking at all. This isn’t him.

His hands reach behind me and undo the cuffs, bringing my arms by the wrists round his back. “You should,” he says, voice already trembling, “touch me too.”

When he lets go of them, his hand returns between us - this time, he pushes himself right up against me and holds both our cocks in one hand, stroking us together. His head falls onto my shoulder and mine does the same. I cry out, helpless, and my arms wrap tightly round his middle. I can’t compose myself. My toes clench and I press the soles of my feet against the shower floor to try pushing my body away, but, as the burns burn and water stains the floor, they slip away, and I fall even further into him.

My fingers press into his back. I wish I could hold back the moans that want to escape me. Why does this feel good? I must have lost it. I must have lost my mind.

A shame moan does escape me so I bury my mouth into his shoulder. “D-Dan…” I cry, squeezing my eyes shut. I can’t help but think of him: because I know, unable to escape it, that he’s the one causing this.

His body lets out a laugh. “Good. Call out his name…” My legs bend and wrap tightly round his body. “… And he’ll call out yours.”

Hot. My body feels hot. “Dan…” I’m losing it.

His hand is so warm, so soft, so smooth. Have I ever felt it before? No. Not even with the Remnant. His cock feels strange against my own - they were never meant to touch like this. And yet… subtly, it rubs against me, and I can feel its sensitivity…  _his_ sensitivity.

He lets out a soft, breathy moan, but tries to cut it off himself, as if he doesn’t want me to hear it. But, once I have, I’m chained to the faint memories of the noises from that mouth, and I’m desperate to make them full again, to give them life again.

Without thinking, one of my hands slips round his waist and I wrap my fingers round his warm length - he gasps and shudders at the touch, his head raising sharply off my shoulder.

“Wai - ” he tries, but cuts himself off. Instead, he lets out a desperate whine and drops his head back down. I feel his lips part against my skin.  _“Phil…”_

My heart skips a beat.  _Dan_ …

His other hand, wrapped around my back, digs into my side. “Phil…  _please_ …” His body shakes against mine, burning hot. “ _Help_ …”

It doesn’t even cross my mind that he might mean something else.

I shush him impulsively and turn my head to press a loving kiss to his cheek. “It’s okay.” I start to move my hand and his body flinches, a gasp leaving his mouth. Was he always this sensitive? “This will feel good.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his hair brushes slightly up and down my skin, seeming to signal a nod. My chest floods with warmth: he’s really letting me do this.

With that, both our hands work together, occasionally brushing against each other, and light scattered moans fill the room. The sounds of our shame are mostly hidden by the loudness of the showerhead. His -  _Dan’s_ fingers press firmly, twitching slightly, into my side, constantly letting me know how much he’s feeling this. That alone makes me feel giddy: I’m making him feel good. That’s something I’ve only ever (dangerously) dreamed about, years ago. Those desires had been buried, but with this Remnant’s ability to excavate the deepest recesses of my soul and heighten whatever he pleases, when Dan was at my mercy I fell into overdrive. And, now, those desires don’t seem to have been able to rest against: they’ve been given life again.

I wonder - is this the case with Dan?

“Phil…” he whines, hips bucking desperately into my hand. “Please… bite me…”

My heart jumps. “What?”

His breath is hot against my shoulder, seeping over to my neck and making me shiver. “I want… Use your teeth…” His body seemingly trembles at the thought. “It’ll feel good.”

My body, and my mind, overcome with the addictive heat of this moment, can’t bring myself to deny him: I part my lips against his shoulder, bear my teeth, and firmly bite down.

He practically squeals at the feeling, and at first I worry - but his cock twitches in my hand. Oh. Perhaps he really is a masochist.

“Please…” he begs, definitely shivering now. “Keep - ” He interrupts himself with another gasp as I, pre-emptively, sink my teeth a little lower.

His hand wrapped round me fails to keep up, so I let it fall away as I take both of us in one hand, just like he did before. His cock feels far hotter against mine now - maybe I was right, maybe the Remnant can heighten the experience for him. But why? Is it because he feels this too?

I don’t think either of us can last much longer.

“Phil - !” Dan gasps again, moaning into my collar. His reactions only spur me on, desperate to make it better for him. “You can… go further…” Both arms now wrap around me tightly, holding himself close to me. “Draw… blood…”

Without hesitation, I comply: I press my teeth down harder until I break the skin, and, with a stifled cry from Dan’s mouth, blood starts to swell out and onto my lips. Again, without thinking, I let my tongue lap it up - with that, Dan shivers, the same way he did when I first tasted his blood. It’s so warm, it’s like hot chocolate, and I don’t stop myself from taking it all. I start to suckle gently to get as much as I can, already addicted to the taste.

He squeezes my waist tightly.

“Phil… I… I can't…”

Impulsively, I shush him, and his head falls limply onto me, as if to give in.

_Dan… Why do you have to be so cute? It brings back a dark feeling from within me, one I thought was only the Remnant - a desire to overwhelm you._

He tenses suddenly, jerking, fingers digging harshly into my sides, and he lets out a cry-like moan as he spills over my hand. At that - at the heat he exudes, and his reaction - I find myself coming too, overwhelmed myself. He’s too much for me, and yet, I can’t refuse myself him.

And just like that, it’s over.

We spend a while panting into the hot air, trying to recover, but it’s not long before he pulls himself away and grabs the shower head. Without a word, he brings it between us, washing away our mess and the abandoned soap suds from earlier. As the thrill of those events quickly dies away, awkwardness grows again, and I turn myself away from him - this is no longer Dan before me again. We’re back to the Remnant.

He turns the shower off and drags me out into the bathroom, setting me down on a blanket of towels as he proceeds to dry us both up. He leaves a towel on his own head as he pats me down, like Dan always does. It makes me feel longing, and I miss him, even though he’s still here before me.

He draws the towel away and kneels down in front me, catching my eyes before I can look away.

“Phil,” he calls, making sure I keep my eyes on him. “We need to have some food now, okay? So I’ll go get you some clothes to put on.”

He gets up again - it’s not like he was asking for my approval - and promptly leaves the bathroom, and I hear the lock go  _click_  to warn me not to move.

My eyes drift over to the shower, where we so indulged only recently, and I force my eyes away again.  _Don’t think about it_ , I warn myself.  _It’s the Remnant. He only wants to play with you, and mess you up. Stop letting him._ No - I reconsider that, defeatedly.  _Stop letting it be so easy._

A sound, previously dim, seems to grow in volume, like it was always there without me realising it.  _Tick, tock. Tick, tock._ I look round searchingly for the sound and spot a little alarm clock on top of the basin. There’s a clock in here too, now? I suppose that Remnant does need to keep a sharp eye on the time - none of us want him to get trapped in Dan’s body.

That raises a question: what would happen if it did? Would Dan die, forced away inside his own body? Or would he just sit there like he does now, unable to have any will himself? What would happen to the Remnant, in the end: if he can’t escape the body, does that mean, when the time comes, he’d die too?

I wonder: if the host was to be killed with the Remnant inside, would they both die? Perhaps you’d need to injure the body enough to render the Remnant weak enough not to escape.

But no - shake that thought away. I wouldn’t kill Dan, not over something as flimsy as that. It wouldn’t be worth it.

The door unlocks and slides open, and a now clothed Dan -  _no, just his body_  - throws me some clothes for myself.

“Quick,” he orders before he shuts the door again. “You know how precious time is to me.”

With that, he locks the door again, and I can tell he’s waiting outside.

Once dressed again, I awkwardly drag myself over to the door and knock on it, refusing to use my voice. It clicks unlocked again and I shuffle back in time for it to open. He looks down at me and grins, pleased.

He picks me up with my legs round his body and carries me to the living room, placing me down in one of the chairs. His hands reach for mine but suddenly stop.

“Shit,” he curses. His hands move away. “Stay there. Move, and I’ll cut something else from your body.”

With that, he runs back to the bathroom, and then it clicks: the handcuffs. He had removed them in our last activity, and hadn’t put them back. He uses them to chain me to the chair - at least, he did with Dan, during mealtimes.

How could he make such a mistake? If he was certain he needed the cuffs, why and how could he forget them? He doesn’t forget - that’s what I learnt from having his consciousness merged with mine. He’s only a spirit, so his memory doesn’t work like ours - like the Living’s. He doesn’t have the capability of forgetting. So how could he make any error like this?

Or… maybe… Dan was the one to take them off.

He slams the bathroom door on his way back, making me jump. My hands grip onto the chair tightly, making sure I don’t end up out of it somehow. My heart races in my chest: as much as I don’t want to admit it, I’m terrified of that Remnant.

He storms back into the living room and doesn’t even acknowledge my obedience to his demand, rushing instead to secure the cuffs on my ankles, securing me to the chair.

He goes off to the kitchen after that without a word to me. He seems angry with himself. I hope he doesn’t take it out on me, but who am I kidding? Of course he is. I can only hope he’ll calm down over… over whatever meal this is.

As he works at cooking, I suppose, the room around me swells with a deafening silence, strangely enough, and I feel it thick in the air. It’s like it keeps me from moving. No, I’m wrong: the silence actually only emphasises another, more prominent sound:

_Tick, tock, tick, tock…_

Ugh, here too?

I squeeze my eyes shut in an attempt to block it out, but once I’ve acknowledged it it won’t be ignored. It’s like, with every tick, it gets louder, and I can  _feel_ it inside my head. It starts to hurt. And how stupid is that? It’s just a noise. I don’t get why it affects me so much.

I’m surprised I ever forget it.

I wonder back to a thought I’d had in the shower: why exactly is the Remnant letting us behave like this? He doesn’t know the world of sex, at least not from what I’ve seen, and since he doesn’t have a body he doesn’t get aroused like we Living can. So why the exploration? Why isn’t he just sticking to what he knows?

I wonder how this must feel for him. I wonder how his desires work. He can’t get aroused, can’t have sexual desires, so what are his? What is this  _kick_ that he gets from all this torture? And if he’s so bound to the body’s desires, if he’s so bound to its will, how is he able to fulfil them? It’s not like I wanted to see myself bringing Dan pain, so why did I? Did I secretly want to? If I’m honest, I could feel that  _kick_ just like the Remnant does: does that mean we share it, or his desires infiltrated mine? He said we were  _weak_. Does that mean he can fill our free will with his own? He called us  _willing._ What did he mean by that: are we submissive or eager?

The ticking in my head hurts further still, and the thoughts stop. I briefly wonder how Dan feels about all this. Just for a moment, somehow, I wish we could talk.

I try to spot the clock in this room, but it seems to be hidden. That infuriates me more than the ticking, because at least if I knew where it was I could -

No. I was going to say “go up and turn it off”, but of course I can’t. My feet are burned. I can’t do anything. I’m almost like a doll, only alive for this Remnant’s entertainment. Perhaps that’s exactly the mindset he wanted me to have. After all - it’s what I felt like with him inside me. Some sort of strange doll, helpless, unable to escape its fate, embodying both life and death at the same time. It’s like something out of fiction.

I wonder if there might be a way to kill myself here. That’s always an option. But the Remnant hardly lets me out of his sight, so probably not. I feel even worse for Dan: being controlled like that, he really never could. He’s more of a doll than I am, now.

He returns with two plates of food and places them down on the table, with one in front of me. It looks like brunch:  _ah_ , is it maybe midday?

He disappears again briefly to grab us some cutlery before finally sitting down opposite me.

“Go on,” he says. “You must be starving by now.”

I have to agree: I can’t remember the last meal I had.

We eat quickly and in silence. As much as I wanted to drag out the meal, thinking I could delay whatever activity he wants to do next, this Remnant was smart: I was really too hungry to see it through. I bet he planned it like that.

Afterwards, he stands himself up, presumably to take the dirty plates, but when he stops at me and kneels down, I realise I have presumed wrong. Nervously, anxiously, I gulp. He looks at me with an almost kind look - he isn’t intending on hurting me right now. I hope.

“Phil,” he starts, making sure he has my attention. “I made a little oversight when I picked you two as my next victims. You see, I was so thrilled to have found someone who recognised me, someone so obviously meek, that I jumped ahead without doing my research: unfortunately for me, you’re a couple of famous faces.” He shows me a smile. “So, of course, we have to be extra careful now.”

He reaches a hand forward and takes mine in his grasp, squeezing lightly. Still, the action makes me flinch with worry.

“Do you know what day it is today?” he asks, like an adult to a child. I shake my head. “It’s a Wednesday.”

 _Ah!_ Dan’s liveshow! What happened about that?

“Don’t worry - I did his liveshow. You know I could play it off easily. I can behave exactly like Dan.” I don’t deny that: he really can. That’s how he tricked Dan into the chair in the first place. “But…” He squeezes my hand a little tighter, as if in warning. “We also need some YouTube content, too.”

My heart drops. I don’t think I can do it.

“It’ll be fine,” he soothes me, showing me a proud smile. “I’ll let you have Dan back.”

A happy warmth buzzes in my stomach: I can’t deny how happy I’ll be to see Dan again, for once not in a compromising scenario.

“I’ll still be in here, though: I’ll just be loosening the reins a little.” He cocks his head, knowing he always has the upper hand. “Sound fair?”

I look away, not saying a word.

“Great!”

And with that, he picks me up and carries me into the gaming room, setting me down on the sofa. I’m getting pretty accustomed to him carrying me like that everywhere. I worry, if this goes on for too long, that I might forget how to walk entirely.

He leaves me there to set things up - tripod, camera, lights, computer, controllers - whilst humming to himself carefree. It’s odd, hearing him hum like that with Dan. Dan isn’t the type to do that when he’s bored - he’s more likely to full-on sing, or tap his fingers on a surface to make a little tune. But humming? That must be the Remnant’s thing. I wonder why: is it a way of keeping himself entertained? I wonder what would happen if he got bored. I would hate to be given the responsibility of keeping that from happening.

He sits back down with me and grabs one of the controllers. I haven’t been paying attention, so I blink a few times and finally see what game we’re going to be playing: oh, it’s a horror game. I’d forgotten it was Halloween. Wait, no it isn’t. Isn’t it Winter already? Oh god, I’ve completely lost track of time. How long have we been doing this now?

“Phil?” he calls, grabbing my attention again. I flinch and turn to him, finally paying attention. He frowns at me. “You’re sleepy, aren’t you?” I don’t answer but I know it’s true. It doesn’t matter anyway - he won’t let me sleep. Instead, he lays my controller into my hands. “Tell you what: we play this for a few hours, and then you can have a nice lie down on the bed. Sound fair?”

With that, I actually find myself nodding. That really does sound good, and I don’t want to lose the opportunity - it’s rare for the Remnant to show any kind of compassion.

He smiles. “Good.”

He turns back to the camera and waves his hand, and I realise the filming has begun. I don’t say anything as he introduces the video this time - I’m watching him intently. I can’t tell if this is really Dan or the Remnant. Right now, it looks like neither: it looks like Daniel Howell, YouTuber. He instantly glows once the camera is on him and almost becomes an entirely different, more giddy person. I’d never thought about that before.

He nudges me with his elbow and mumbles for me to join in, and to cheer up. So I try to. He does the intro again and I smile to the side, still not saying a word. I can’t be myself yet. I need to be someone else: I need to be AmazingPhil. Yes, that makes sense. I can merely put on an act, pretending that we’re not in the hands of this Remnant, that, instead, if only for a brief time, Dan and I are happy and normal again.

So then we play. We play for hours. We get through the horror game quite quickly and move on to the Sims. The horror doesn’t scare me as much as I thought it would, because once we get into it, it feels like Dan is here with me again. And I feel oddly safe like that.

And, shamefully, I have fun. It feels weird to think that now. I enjoy living in this little bubble of the past, pretending that me and Dan are okay again. It’s like we’re frozen in time: we can enjoy the time before the Remnant showed up without the consequences. Because, even if we do eventually escape his grasp, things will never go back to this. I’d dread that day just as much as I dread every oncoming moment now.

I eventually grow extremely tired and Dan decides to end our session there: he turns everything off, returns to me, and lifts me up in his arms.  _Ah, right, this isn’t Dan._ I’d almost forgotten.

“As I promised,” the Remnant reminds me in a gentle voice - how compassionate. “You can have a lie down now.”

He carries me gently to my bedroom again and lays me down on the bed. I let my eyes drift closed and the sweet escape of sleep starts to fill me, dragging me under. Hands work their gentle way into my jeans and pull them down, and my shirt is carefully pulled off it. How compassionate. I should wonder why the Remnant is being is nice to me, but I’m too tired to care.

“Are you having a nice lie down, Phil?” he asks me softly. I frown a little: I haven’t got there just yet. Right now, I’m just… I’m just 'lying down’.

He lets out a little giggle.  _Oh_.

How was I not suspicious of his kindness?

“Don’t close your eyes - you might fall asleep for good,” he taunts, well aware of his little play. I reluctantly open them, cursing myself for relaxing so much into this bed. I really could fall asleep but now that I feel dread I’m sure it’ll keep me awake enough.

He reaches into a drawer and retrieves a small knife, wiping it on his shirt as he brings it over to me. He climbs onto the bed and straddles my waist. My heart’s already beating fast again - he hasn’t a knife on me yet. After the 'operation’ he performed on me, now I know how serious these injuries can get, I dread what he’s going to do to me.

“Yeah - don’t sleep just yet.” He grins. “First, I want to see you bleed.”

 


	5. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been around for centuries. I know about the mind, the body, and the soul, and the many ways they can all be broken. I’ve been bored for a long time, and all I want to do is have some fun. I want to wreak havoc, even just a little, and you will help me do it: all I need is a body or two.”
> 
> Summary: Now the Remnant has moved onto Dan as its host, and Phil is its new prey. But this isn’t the same as last time. Tensions build, the torture doesn’t seem so mild anymore, and a dark foreboding cloud swells in Phil’s mind as their end fate no longer seems so hopeful. The two, somehow, must find some way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue (and final part) will be posted next Tuesday!

**WN: strong language, hostage/prisoner situation, spiritual possession (see Remnants - Skulduggery Pleasant series), restraint, torture, gore and blood, emotional manipulation, conflicting non-con/smut (vampirism, asphyxiation, masturbation), threats of death, knives, brief reference to self-harm, attempted suicide/assisted suicide/murder**

Straddling me, playing the knife between his fingers, and grinning, I gulp at the sight above me. This could get bad. He removed my appendix as a mere safe move, to keep me from walking, when the burns on my feet have done the job well enough. As I recall from his memories, he has mutilated people and removed their body parts purely  _because he wanted to_. So what is he going to do to me?

By this point, I don’t feel exposed laying before him like this in only my underwear. But, when that knife comes into play, I certainly do. Even with my clothes on, even though in my head I know it wouldn’t make a difference, I can’t help but feel like that would soften the blow.

“So…” he teases, knowing he has me at his mercy. “Where should we start?”

I clench my teeth, desperate to ask what he’s planning to do. He said he wanted to see me bleed, but how much is he thinking?

He brings a hand down to my upper left arm, wrapping his fingers round it, and holding it down. I wonder if squirming would do me any good or make it somehow more painful.

He grins. “You can tense all you like, if that helps. You’ll bleed all the same.”

He brings the knife down to my shoulder and I do just that, turning my head away, squeezing my eyes shut, and tensing my arm.

The knife slashes through my skin and I let out a stifled whine, holding the rest back. The wound throbs and pulses like my heart - it’s the blood trickling out. I keep my eyes tightly closed.

“Beautiful,” the Remnant praises - hopefully his own work and not my job of bleeding - and plays his fingers round the cut, prodding and pressing, squeezing out as much blood as he can. My brow twitches at the touch, feeling a little exposed like that. It’s a new and odd sort of exposure, because it’s something from inside me being shown to the outside. He leans down and brings his face close to mine, whispering into my ear. “Will this keep you awake?”

I keep my face turned away, refusing to answer.

He brings the knife to my stomach this time, cutting a little line above my belly button and watching the blood flow gently out of me. The blood doesn’t hurt as it leaves me, but there’s rather a stinging reminder of the sharp pain from the knife breaking open my skin. I wonder if this is how it feels to cut yourself. I’m glad I never did it.

“I would love to try your neck,” he teases, running a finger like a mock knife across my throat. I flinch and try not to move away. “But wouldn’t you be scared that I’d cut too deep? Though, I’m not saying that would be an accident…” He giggles to himself as if he’s just thought of something incredibly funny. But, to me, it only makes me scared.

He slips down, sitting now on my calves, as he brings the knife to my thigh - and then the other - and the first - and the other - all the way down to the knees. He doesn’t cut the knees, though: not enough blood I assume.

“Does that sting?” I don’t reply - but the way my eyebrows twitch probably gives my answer away.  _Yes_. Yes it really does, all the way down my thighs. I can feel the blood trickling down, round my thighs, and dripping off onto the duvet. It’s still blue and green, so it’s going to stain. I feel sad about that. I think about how ruined my bedsheets are going to be now, because the blood won’t come out of them. I try to convince myself that I’m not trying to distract myself with this.

Miraculously, I don’t feel like I’m going to drift off to sleep anymore. I think it would be weird if I still did. Instead, all I can do is feel anxious about what this is going to escalate to, because I’m sure he won’t be satisfied from just these small cuts alone. He’ll want something more, something more intense. And I fear what that could be.

He sits back for a moment, wondering, and humming briefly to himself. There it is - his ponder of dissatisfaction. I shut my eyes again and dread whatever he thinks up.

After a while, he brings a hand to my knee and pushes it out, exposing my inner thigh. I frown, confused - then he drags the knife across it. A vertical line, from the top to the knee, thin. I feel blood dot across the entire line and pour down, like a tiny waterfall, and it hits the bedsheets again.

Then, he leans down - and his tongue presses against the cut.

I cry out, confused, flushing a bright red. When I look down at him, he looks… I turn my head away, refusing to think about it. He’s in a  _really_  compromising position.

Almost timidly - that’s how it feels, anyway - he licks the blood as it slips down, making me shiver at the touch. It’s too gentle. This is too gentle and intimate for the Remnant, and yet, I can’t imagine this not being his work.

He pulls back, thinking. A short contemplative hum leaves his throat.

“Interesting…” he hums. He briefly laps at it again and my thigh tenses at the touch. “It’s surprisingly nice. Not like usual food and drink, obviously, but in its own way.”

He slides between my legs and I feel his hand reach my stomach. This time, the knife cuts a line beneath my belly button, and as he presses his mouth to this cut I can’t help the ideas that race through my mind. The shame of it. This scene isn’t like that, so why am I reacting as if it is? This time, instead of simply licking up my blood, he suckles, no longer waiting for his fill. That doesn’t help my thoughts. This is an even  _more_ compromising position, and just shutting my eyes won’t help that.

Thankfully, he pulls up.

“Are you feeling awake yet?” he teases with a little chuckle. I  _really_ hope he isn’t talking about what I think he is. A sudden stinging sensation appears at my lower ribs, and I gasp out in surprise. Thank god, he wasn’t. “I’ll tell you what - I certainly am.”

He reaches a hand to my chin and grips me, forcing me to face him.

“Open your eyes, Phil.” I wish he’d stop calling my name, not with that voice. Reluctantly, I do. He has a little bit of blood lingering on his bottom lip, but I won’t tell him about it - he’ll probably tease me for firstly looking at his lips. He grins. “Do you like this? How is it, having him taste your blood instead?” I don’t answer - but I can’t help my face contorting slightly at the mention. “Though, as I recall, you really did love tasting his.”

He raises both hands and, with a sharp flick, his wrist is bleeding. He smiles and brings it to his own lips, lapping it up greedily. I wish the sight didn’t affect me like it does, but I can’t help it - I’ve never imagined Dan doing something so… hot?

He smiles at me and leans down, his cheeks swollen slightly, and he presses his lips to mine. He parts them slightly and I taste blood dripping onto my tongue -  _oh,_ he was holding it for me. I feel adrenaline’s urge to push him back for such an action… but it’s such a unique experience, I can’t bring myself to end it. The taste - of blood and his lips, and his tongue against mine - is too nice for me to refuse. I find myself unable to deny it anymore, and I grow hot and hard below.  _How perverted_. This is barely even Dan. Yet, when I think about it, would Dan ever have let me enjoy such an experience? No. Certainly not. In a sordid, twisted way, I’m slightly grateful to this Remnant.

He pulls back and lets me swallow, revelling in the taste. In return, he shows me a pleased smile.

“There,” he hums. “Isn’t it nice when you don’t resist?” As usual, I don’t answer: though, to be honest, it’s because I’m still a little dazed. “Of course, when I say that, you’re already so well-behaved. I mean  _mentally_.”

Kneeling over me, he drops the knife onto the pillow and reaches his left hand down between us. He presses the ball of his hand into my crotch and I gasp, biting my lip to shut myself up.

He chuckles. “You really  _are_ a pervert, aren’t you?”

I turn my head away, cringing, wishing he would stop seeing that side of me. This is why I didn’t want him in Dan’s body!

He chuckles, bringing his wrist to his mouth again, and kisses me just like last time. Dan’s blood fills my mouth and some of it dribbles out as overflow. He stops kissing me to catch it with his tongue, bringing it back into my mouth again.  _Fuck_. I choke a little, feeling overwhelmed. He’s kneading my crotch gently but firmly enough to make me moan.

He pulls back at the sound I make. “Is it really that good for you?”

I flush a bright red. “Why… why this?” I ask nervously, honestly quite scared to.

He cocks his head at me. “’ _This’_? Oh, you mean the sexual stuff?” As if to indicate what he means, he squeezes me through my underwear, causing me to flinch and squeal. He chuckles at that. “Well, you’re far more responsive to this than anything else. And, besides…” He moves his hand from my crotch to his own, palming his own apparently needy cock and moaning at the satisfaction. “I can’t exactly deny such a horny body, can I?”

My eyes widen at the sight. I’m certainly not used to seeing Dan so… well,  _horny._  This must be the Remnant’s work. But that doesn’t answer my question: even if Dan is usually this horny, why is the Remnant embracing it? Why not shun it, and ignore it? And why drag me into this?

No, that one’s obvious, as much as I’ve never let myself admit: it’s because Dan lusts for me. That has to be it. Can that really have been the case, all along?

I feel so stupid. No wonder this Remnant is enjoying us so much - we’re both such idiots, and he holds all the cards.

“Besides…” he continues, gasping a little - he’s  _still_ pleasuring himself, right on top of me. “You started it. Don’t you remember?”

I will him to stop.

“You were the one who lusted for  _him_ first. You could hardly contain yourself, seeing him so defenceless. You found it hot. It turned you on.” I turn my head away but his hand reaches for my chin and brings me back, forcing me to face it. “It  _did_ , so don’t deny it.” He grins. “That’s why you slept with him - you couldn’t resist it any more than I could. So which one of us does that make the monster, hmm?”

I wish I didn’t have to hear him talk - has he ever removed someone’s ears before?

He stares down at me: inspecting, debating, thinking. He cocks his head. “Want to do it again?”

My heart leaps in my chest. “Huh?”

He smiles, leaning closer. “You know -  _fuck him_. I know you do. He wants it too.” He lets out a laugh. “It’s amazing how you both managed to miss this before. It’s like you needed me.”

I don’t say anything to that. What am I supposed to do? Am I expected to say  _Yes, actually I’d love to fuck him,_  and let him continue? What if I don’t? If that body wants it so much, might he just take it from me? I don’t like the sound of that - it sends a shiver down my spine. I feel the muscles in my face starting to contort again, as they do when an unpleasant thought invades my mind, and I look away from the Remnant - from the familiar face.

Strangely, he lets out a sigh. His hand slips round from my chin to my cheek, stroking it affectionately while keeping me facing him: what a clever, deceptive move.

“Why do you object?” he mutters, sounding genuinely confused. “What’s the issue here? You want him, he wants you - what’s getting in the way?”

I don’t give him an answer - honestly, I can’t even think of a clear one. But I know it isn’t as simple as the Remnant is making it out to be.

He cocks his head. “Why don’t you just take advantage of the situation? If you’re worried that Dan doesn’t like you back, if you’re worried that I’m lying, why not take it while you can? I can do that for you, you know?” He shows me that signature grin again, trying to tempt me. “I can make him like it. It’s in here, anyway. I can heighten it.”

I cringe. “But that’s not what you do,” I snap, not thinking.

He scoffs back. “It used to be - I thought you’d know that. Before I was free, I was trapped like the rest of them, used intermittently to force out information, to inflict torture, to do anything we were wanted for. So yes - I very much can.”

God, it’s been so long since I read the books, I’d forgotten that. But that assumes that this Remnant has pretty much flown out of them, or at least they were written on truth. How can I compare the Remnant in this story to the ones from those? Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe it took on the name after learning about the fictional version. How could I ever know?

I turn my head away, forcing it out of his hand. “I don’t want to do that,” I answer, for once being assertive. “I won’t traumatise him like that.”

The Remnant merely laughs at that. “What, and you haven’t already? Your body was the vehicle of a lot of his torture. Do you think he’ll manage to forget that?”

He slides down my body - I watch him worriedly, my heart already starting to pound. He shows me his smile as his hands run over my thighs.

“Have you forgotten that I’m in his head? This won’t traumatise him - he wants it more than you do, believe me.”

He chuckles to himself with that.

His hands glide over the front of my underwear and I gasp - I’m already twitching from that touch alone. I can feel my blood rushing downwards.

“Wait - ” I cry, but he cuts me off.

“I told you - I can’t deny him.” He pulls my underwear down, exposing me. “This is  _his_ desire, not mine. He wants it so much I’m practically powerless to stop him.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “So stop complaining about being a pervert and just enjoy it already.”

He takes me into his hand as if to end the argument there, and my head falls back on the pillow.

This is strange. I can’t understand it. That  _still_ doesn’t explain everything. He’s only doing this because Dan wants it that badly? Surely that’s not true - it can’t be true!

Dan: powerful enough to overcome a Remnant?

I can’t imagine that. So is he lying?

But why lie? Why say something like that? I know the Remnant himself doesn’t have any sexual desires, so it  _has_ to be Dan’s. Right?

There’s no way to resist it. It’s been so clear and I’ve just been fighting it all along. It’s Dan. It must be Dan. No matter how many times I state it, it just doesn’t seem true. But why? I’ve seen it - I’ve  _felt_ it. I  _know_ it’s him. So why am I so reluctant to accept it?

Am I somehow afraid of getting hurt?

His hand stops after a while, so I look down: his head is alarmingly close and he parts his lips.

“Wait!” I cry. “Stop!”

He stops, looks at me, and chuckles. “Can’t - he wants it. And it looks like you do too.”

With that, he takes me into his mouth, and with a surprised cry my head falls down against the pillow. This is… wrong, isn’t it? It doesn’t make sense, so I don’t know how to feel about it. It’s too weird for me to comprehend. Is this Dan? How much of this is Dan? And yet… as weird and wrong as it may be, I can feel his passion burning through. I feel he desire to do this for me, and it burns me up. I stop resisting and my breathing falls ragged: it really does feel good.

My hands start to clench, taking fistfuls of the sheets beneath me, then his hand lifts mine from the bed and places on his head. He lifts up briefly, wishing to say something.

“Go on,” he insists, dropping his hand from mine. “Control me, if you want.”

And then he goes back.

His head starts to bob, his tongue curving round as much of me as possible, and I find my hand feeling like a reverse puppet master: it’s like, passively, I’m the one controlling this. My fingers tighten in his hair. I can’t take my eyes off him. Why does Dan have to look so good like that?

 _It’s okay_ , I tell myself, letting a stifled moan escape me.  _He wants this. That’s why it’s happening at all._

Nervously, I let myself apply pressure on his head, pushing him a little further, and he doesn’t resist me. After a while, he seems to relax, and I realise I’m now the one controlling him. Instead of using his tongue, or his mouth at all, he’s simply letting me use him, letting myself enjoy the warmth of his mouth. It’s addictive. My toes clench and my hips start to rock up subtly towards him. My face feels red, my body feels hot all over. I’m losing myself again.

His eyes open and he fixes on me - then they close just as quickly. I can’t tell who I just saw.

I drop my head back and shut my eyes too, wondering what the hell I should do now. How do we keep getting into these situations?

Suddenly, his hand grasps mine and removes it, letting himself pull up. I watch him carefully as he brings a hand to his mouth, as if to check nothing has spilled.

“Leaking already?” he mumbles in a curious voice. I immediately blush. “You’re too quick, Lester.”  _Really - now the surname?_ He proceeds to climb over me, slipping the trousers off his legs - wait, and his underwear too. My eyebrows raise without permission - he’s hard too? “There’s no time to waste, then.”

He brings his right hand to his erection and doesn’t hesitate to stroke it: I wonder if he’s been doing that all along, and I just hadn’t noticed. His other hand raises to his lips, and pauses. His eyes drift down to my chest, then - specifically, the cuts. He lets out a contemplative hum - and then his face flushes red.

“I want…” he whines -  _Dan?_  Quickly, he grabs the knife again, raises my wrist, and slashes through it, ignoring my pained cry as he lets the blood drip onto his fingers. “I want… to feel it…” He drops my wrist and brings his fingers behind him. My mouth drops open and a shocked gasp falls out of it as he slips his blood-covered fingers inside.

His body shivers but arches nonetheless. He lets out a pleasured whine and moves them within himself, and his face turns a shy red. Is he really enjoying that? Maybe this is the Remnant’s work. I can’t imagine the Dan I know being this kinky. But, then again, I’ve never known his sex life.

As his other hand reaches for his cock again, and his gentle moans start filling the air, I feel a desperate urge to touch him. Even now, without being touched myself, I can feel myself growing harder still just by looking at him. Have I always been this easily affected by him? Well, he’s never acted like this before. Maybe I’ve been too pent-up all this time.

Dan lets out a sudden whine and falls forwards, so on impulse my hands reach up to his shoulders and catch him. His head instantly droops before me, his body shivers, and he lets out another soft moan.

“Phil…” My heart skips a beat. “I want…  _I need you…_ ”

He’s too close. I feel drawn to him - no,  _chained_  to him. I bring my head closer, lips parting, already feeling too far gone. I can’t resist it.

“Okay.”

In a whine, unable to stop his own hands, Dan begs me to get a condom, and - after a little direction - I do, reaching round his body to slip it on myself. My heart is pounding. This feels weird, and yet oddly not. It’s more… inevitable, no matter the circumstances.

Seeming to muster all his strength, Dan manages to draw his hands away, push himself up, and lower himself onto me. We both moan out at the contact, satisfied, like we’ve been longing for this for a long time. He keeps his head down, frowning, like he’s refusing to look at me, and, with the palms of his hands pressing into my stomach, he carefully tries to move himself on me. He’s stiff, and shaking, and he’s barely able to really move much. He collapses down, giving in, and lets out a gasp at the feeling - his fingers clench, digging into my skin to show me how much he felt that.

“I can’t…” he cries, sounding too broken for me to ignore.

Without thinking about it I haul myself up and press him against the wall - and he falls there with a surprised little squeal. I push my body against his and grab his hips with my hands. My head falls onto his shoulder and my lips part, feeling a desperate urge to soothe him.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, making sure I’ve got a stable grip. “I’ll do it.”

Dan lets out a whine like a little puppy and his hand wrap round my back, gripping tightly onto me. He doesn’t say a word to me.

Carefully, with all my strength, I start to move Dan’s hips for him, rocking him on top of me. His fingers press further into my skin and a gentle moan leaves him as I start. I never knew this would feel so good. I thought it might, in some unknown abstract way, but I can  _really_ feel him. He’s so tight around me - so tight that every little motion pleases me well enough. It was the same the first time we did this - well, when  _I_ did this to him.

Ah. Maybe it’s not good to think about that.

I hadn’t exactly  _wanted_ to do it. It was the Remnant, I’m sure it was. Sure - seeing Dan like that, all hot and hard, wriggling and shaking his hips a little, taking that machine, such a new sight was bound to arouse me to an extreme point. Of course, in that moment, I couldn’t help but desire to be that machine myself. I really wanted it. But I could hold myself back, I knew I could. It was that Remnant that knew how I felt and wanted to push me to the edge. He wouldn’t let it go until I’d given in and taken him. I hadn’t wanted to do that to do, not if he didn’t want it, not when it was torture in his mind.

So why don’t I regret it? Why does my mind keep turning back to it, instead of begging to forget it? And why does my body react so badly when I think about it?

Oh. Now that I think about it, that Remnant was right:  _That’s why you slept with him - you couldn’t resist it any more than I could. I_ was the one that jumped on Dan. I felt myself do it. It was like, for the first time, the Remnant wasn’t controlling me. I felt similar moments after that too, every time I spoke to him myself. Like Dan now, I overpowered the Remnant.

 _Oh god_ , I really am a monster.

But then again, isn’t what Dan’s doing now exactly the same? In a way, he’s forcing himself on me right now. So why doesn’t it feel like that? Could I be lucky enough to have had Dan react just like I am now the first time we did it?

Maybe we’re both just insane. Yeah - at this point, we must be.

He’s whining, now, with every movement, his face buried into my shoulder. His body is still trembling, still tense, even though I’ve taken control. Worried, through already getting breathless, I bring my lips to his ear.

“You’re shaking,” I tell him. I hear his breath hitch. “Do you not want this?”

“N-no…” he whines immediately, gripping me tighter as if to stop me from getting away. “I-I do… please…” He lets out a soft moan into my collar.

I don’t give up. “Then what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, he buries his face into my shoulder, as if to hide himself away, or to muffle his noises.

I stop our bodies, for a moment keeping us still. At that, Dan lets out a needy whine, subtly rocking his hips to keep some of it going. Not thinking, I bring my hands up to his neck, slide my fingers along his skin, and tilt his head to the side. I press my mouth to the side of his neck and he flinches, seemingly sensitive. I can’t make myself stop: I feel desperate to kiss him, in any sense, to get some of my feelings across to him, those feelings that aren’t just physical between us. Pulling briefly back, I see his face: scrunched up, eyes tightly closed, brow pulled tight, cheeks red. He’s biting his lip. I bring some fingers to his mouth and help free his lip with my thumb.

“Don’t do that,” I beg of him, feeling red and warm myself just from the sight of him like this.

For a moment, it seems like something wants to come out of his mouth - some sort of word or speech - but he slumps without saying anything.

“Phil…” he sighs, leaning into my hands. I feel my heart thump heavily at that. “Your mouth…”

“Huh?” I blush.

Dan’s hands grip my back tightly to pull us closer and he presses his lips against mine. My heart leaps into my throat, and, for a moment, I forget how to breathe. We’ve kissed before, sure, but I can’t get over it. Even the fact that this isn’t the first time feels surreal. His lips part in a pleasing gesture and my tongue moves inside without me willing it to. He moans a little into my mouth and I feel weak. My fingers press desperately into the back of his neck, unwilling to let him move away. I’m going to lose myself in this, I know it, I can feel it.

I pull us away from the wall and drop us onto the bed, with Dan now beneath me. He lets out a little surprised squeal as we move and his arm falls back onto the bed. I lean down over his body and press my lips to his ear.

“Dan,” I gasp, leaning on my elbows by his head. “I’ll keep going now.”

Before I do, Dan brings his hands to mine by either side of his head and slips his fingers beneath mine, entwining them together and squeezing. He turns his head away, blushing. “Please do…” he begs in a small voice.

So I do.

I feel drawn to him now and I can’t stop myself from kissing him, and he gratefully accepts me. Our fingers press tightly together as I move inside him, making his breath falter in my mouth. How did we get to this? When I try piecing it together, my thoughts get all blurry. It’s like I lose myself the moment it starts to happen. Our mouths fall apart and I remain above him, leaning down, seeing him try to turn his face away from my eyes. I wonder why he’s doing that? Did he do it before, when the Remnant was in me instead?

“No…!” he cries suddenly once our kiss ends. He retches his hand out from under mine and slaps it quickly over his mouth, as if to shut himself up. I frown a little, getting concerned again. I wish he wasn’t so anxious in this situation - I wish he was calm and tranquil, maybe shy in a cute way. It makes me worry that he may not consciously want to be here.

So, out of selfish motives, I pull his hand away. He stares at me wide eyed, as if to object. “Don’t do that,” I plead him. “Let me hear you.”

He turns bright red and turns his face away, looking shy again, almost ashamed if I dared let myself think it.

“Ph-Phil…” he gasps, as if he can’t control his mouth. “I want… your taste…” He grows even redder.

I blink. “Do you want my blood again?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to bite down his lip, but the word “yes” breaks out of it.

I pause our motions for a moment and take the knife again, holding my breath as I drag it across my wrist, and lay it down again as I hold the cut against mouth. Gratefully, he takes to it, closes his lips around it and gently suckles. It’s almost endearing when he does that, I don’t know why. Shouldn’t it seem weird?

I resume my thrusts and Dan gasps into my arm, moaning quietly and stifled against my skin. It’s oddly hot, seeing him like this before me. It’s like seeing a whole different Dan. It makes me lose control even more than before, making me desperate to fuck him. How did I ever get this lucky?

I pull my hand away after a while to press it into the bed again, regaining my balance to push into him probably. Doing so, I grab his hand and connect our fingers again, making sure he won’t try to muffle himself again.

Dan’s head drops back and his back arches slightly. He’s panting now, as am I - we must be getting close. I squeeze his fingers tightly and mutter curses under my breath.

“Phil…!” he cries. It’s intoxicating to hear him say my name like that. It keeps trying to remind me that this is real, with him, but I still can’t quite grasp it. “Please…” He lifts my hand from the bed and brings it to his throat, arching his chin slightly further away. “I want you to… to…” He curls my fingers round his neck, pressing down. My breath catches in my throat.

“I can’t,” I object. “I’ll hurt you.”

I try to pull my hand away but he doesn’t let me. My heart rushes in my chest.

Dan bites down on his bottom lip again, as if desperate to stop himself, but the words fall out anyway.

“But I want you to. I want you to hurt me.” I feel my heart tremble at his voice. “It will feel good.”

 _Ah, fuck_.

With a rush of arousal, I let out a groan and suddenly both my hands are clasped round his throat. All my weight is pressing down on his neck but I can’t bring myself to stop - what’s wrong with us? Dan lets out a choked gasp and his head rocks back, mouth stuck open, unable to breathe. I rock into him quicker, consciously thinking the sooner I finish the sooner he can breathe, unconsciously spurred on more. I hear his chokes fill my ears and feel them against my palms. I can feel the throbbing of his veins,  _oh god_ , this is too far. But just - just a little more - !

Dan lets out a choked cry and he shivers beneath me, and I realise he’s coming.  _Wow_. He must really like this. Such a sight overwhelms me, and, as Dan tightens unconsciously, I’m brought over too, groaning with satisfaction. Whoever knew we were this twisted?

As it leaves me, I collapse over his body, and my hands fall away from his throat - with that, he lets out a desperate gasp, straining for breath. I want to apologise, but he did ask it from me.

I struggle in my own way to get my breath back. “Are you…” I mumble, “okay?”

I turn my head to face him, my eyes meeting his neck. His short little gasps fill my ears as I reach my tired fingers to his neck, stroking gently. He lets out a little hic at that.

“I'm… okay.”

I feel the hints of a smile when I hear that.

We don’t say anything for a while. I wonder how soon the Remnant will take over again. I don’t want that to happen yet, though - I want Dan to stay with me. I want to kiss his neck, knowing that it’s Dan.

“Phil,” he calls. I answer with a hum. “I’m sorry.”

I frown slightly.  _No_ , I think.  _I don’t want to hear that from you_. “Please,” I beg, slipping my fingers to his ear. “Don’t be.”

He’s quiet again. So am I.

We’re falling asleep. It isn’t hard to figure that out. I wonder if the Remnant will allow that.

I play my fingers gently through the hair at the side of Dan’s head, hanging slightly by his ear. He needs another haircut soon. Though I used to love his hair when it was longer: I always wanted to run my fingers through it, back then. This is the first time I really get to. Strangely, Dan’s hand reaches up too, and he lays his palm over my hand. His fingers curl round mine. I smile, feeling a little giddy at the touch.

“Thank you,” Dan suddenly mutters. I stare up at him in surprise. Was that… was that for me? Or the Remnant? I want to ask him, but I figure he’d never admit to either one of them.

After that, in the sweet silence, my eyes drift closed and I don’t resist the pull of sleep.

It’s a long time, I guess, before I wake up. Dan is no longer with me. I guess the Remnant decided to get back to work with him. But why not me? Why was I left to wake on my own?

Something muffled faintly reaches my ears, in the tranquil silence of this room, which stirs my interest. Is it the Remnant? Is he working on something? Is he… talking to himself? No. It’s different. Mostly, it’s not even words.

It reminds me of the last thing we did.

“Ha,” I quietly hear him laugh. That sounds like the Remnant. “You really can’t do it. Or do you actually  _want_ him to hear you?”

Huh?

A stifled cry leaves him afterwards, not one covered by anything like a hand this time. It’s followed by another laugh.

What’s going on? Is he doing something without me?

I gradually open my sleepy eyes and look out in front of me: there, at the edge of the room, barely hidden by the dark, lays Dan. He’s on his back, head turned away from me, knees bent and legs slightly spread. He’s not wearing anything, and that’s probably why, despite the dark, I can see so much.

He lets out another whine and a shiver runs through him. “Please…” he cries quietly. My heart jumps: is he talking to me?!

No - his own mouth lets out a scoff. “Like that would do anything. Beg me all you want - you’re getting louder the closer you get.”

My blood runs ice cold. It’s Dan and the Remnant.

What on earth are they doing?! Why is the Remnant working on Dan again, and not me? Then again, I suppose his torment isn’t only limited to the one he’s not possessing: he does like to toy with the one he’s actually inside of, because he knows them better.

Dan lets out another stifled moan, followed by a brief sort of sob. “Stop…” he begs, whispering, but he goes unheard.

“But you’re enjoying this,” the Remnant smugly answers back. Dan just whimpers. It’s strangely easy to know which one is which. It’s definitely stranger, though, seeing two different personalities from one body.  "You’re only saying that because you don’t want to wake him up.“

Is the Remnant torturing Dan by using me?

"Look - ” Panicked, I shut my eyes, heart racing in my chest. I don’t want to let Dan that I’ve seen him like that. He lets out a short laugh. “Relax a bit more, will you? He’s still fast asleep.” I let out a short breath of relief.

“Wait - ” Dan cries, cutting himself off with a hitch of breath. “Don’t - !”

“Go on,” the Remnant encourages him. “Pretend it’s him.” That catches my attention, and I feel a frustrating urge to look again. After a silent moment, Dan lets out a helpless moan, and the Remnant scoffs. “Of course, you can’t  _not_  imagine him now.”

They fall silent after that. I wonder what’s going on it that head now. Dan’s breathless stifled noises continue to fill my ears and I struggle to keep my eyes closed. I’m just too curious: I only want to know what he’s doing to make noises like that, to imagine  _me._ It’s not like I’ll judge him.

Eventually, I give in, and open my eyes:

Dan lays as he was before, on his back, legs up and bent at the knee. He’s facing me side-on so I can’t quite see him, but I can see well enough the motions of his hands - one works at the front, and the other, well, I’m not quite sure what he’s doing. At first, I thought he had his fingers inside himself, but now that I look closer, I realise his fingers are curled round something else instead. With a gentle defeated whine, Dan’s legs part a little further, and through his slightly parted lips a brief out-of-place laugh falls out of them.

His head rocks to the side, facing me. My eyes widen - he’s looking right at me. Can he see me, through this darkness? Even I can see that his eyes are open. He spots me, and then his face twists up, cringing, and he turns away. He doesn’t stop though. He lets out a few whines as if to object, to express his desire to stop, but his hands don’t stop.

Suddenly, he lets out a cry, sounding like he’s biting down on that lip again, and his hips jerk upwards, and that’s all I see. A moment later, he falls down, legs closing, mouth letting out pants, and a few brief sobs in there too.

His head turns back to me. It isn’t Dan this time. It makes my blood turn cold again.

“This body’s too tired to play with you now,” is all he says, just as breathless. “So either occupy yourself, or get some more sleep. We’ve only got one more day left anyway.”

And then he rolls it away again.

I swallow tensely. What on earth did I just watch? Was I involved in that at all? Did they both know I was awake?

I don’t think I can sleep right now, not with him on the floor of my room.

“I…” I say, not even thinking. “… I need the bathroom.”

The Remnant says nothing. Then, after a while, he lets out an irritated groan and forces himself up.

He takes me to the bathroom without bothering to put any clothes on first (though he does clean up a bit), and once he’s dropped me inside he shuts the door. I don’t hear him walk away, so I guess he might be waiting outside.

I’m not here to use the bathroom, though. I don’t know why I’m here… the words just kind of happened. The main thing I wanted was to get out of that room, out of that awkward situation. I wanted to do it for Dan. I can’t know how he’s feeling right now and it hurts. It mustn’t be good for him - he always looks so anxious and uncomfortable. I wonder how much influence that Remnant still has on him, even in times of his resurfacing.

Huh? There’s no ticking in here anymore. That’s strange. Did he remove the clock then? Why was it even here in the first place? Then why remove it? Maybe I’m making too big a deal out of this, but those clocks really have been bothering me. I’d started to think that the Remnant put them round the flat just to mess with me, to drive me a little insane. After all - that’s exactly what they seemed to be doing.

After a while of sitting there doing nothing but think, I let out a tired sigh and decided to knock on the door, letting him know that I want to leave. Nothing happens. I press my ear to the door and I don’t even hear him moving. I knock again, and again there’s just silence.  _Uh oh_. Worried, I reach my hand up to the handle and pull down -  _oh_ , nevermind, it’s unlocked. Why would he not lock it?

I pull the door towards me to open it and - quietly and nervously - crawl myself out. Once I poke my head out into the hallway I notice a slumped figure by the door - Dan. His head is drooped and his eyes are closed, and from the looks of it his chest is rising and deflating slowly. Asleep, huh? How cute. I find a smile growing on my lips, like an old familiar friend, and it makes me feel happy. When was the last time I smiled? Such a weird thing to be absent of, or, at least, to suddenly be conscious of.

I crawl into the bedroom and grab him some grabs and the duvet, since there’s no way I’d be able to drag him all the way onto the bed, and return to him. I slip the pyjamas on him carefully, trying hard to let him stay peacefully asleep, lay him down on the floor, and pull the covers over the both of our bodies. It’s warm under here, especially with our bodies pressed against each other.

I let out a gentle sigh, for once feeling relaxed and comfortable. For a moment, I don’t feel anxious or on edge. For this moment, as brief and pointless as it may be, I lay close to Dan and enjoy his company. This body doesn’t scare me when he’s sleeping like this, because I can see none of the Remnant: all I see is Dan, looking peaceful. I can’t help but smile, but tears reach my eyes. We’re going to lose this. I’ve never wanted to think about it, as if by ignoring it it wouldn’t be real, but as the time for switching comes closer I can’t help but worry for the day that the Remnant gets bored of us. It was never long for those before us - not long at all. So I have to hold onto this moment for as long as I can, knowing despite everything that it’s going to end.

The tears fall, hot, onto the floor between us as I press my forehead against his. I rest my hand on his neck and feel reassured by his gentle pulse. For now, I have him, and whilst I can manage it I won’t let him go. He means too much to me: he always has.

Sadly, as much as I fight it, the inevitable tide of sleep washes me under, and I helplessly drown in it, my grip loosening on his neck.

By morning - or, at least, the time I wake up, I’m in my bed again, and the Remnant doesn’t say a word to me about anything. He washes me, cleans my teeth, and feeds me as always. It’s some kind of cooked breakfast, but this could be any meal of the day, so I have no clue what time or even what day it is. Strangely, though I fear what torture he could possibly put me through next, he decides to leave me in the room whilst he goes off somewhere else. I hear the TV playing muffled in from the living room, but I can’t be sure that he’s still in the flat.

Hours pass. I feel too idle. I sit on the bed barely moving a muscle, wondering if he might come back in at any moment. It’s silent in here, but I can hear the wind blowing outside - it must be getting cold out now. Winter must be in full swing.

What’s going on? Why isn’t that Remnant doing anything? Usually it’s hard for him to hide his thrill and anticipation for any torturous activity, but now he doesn’t seem motivated. His grin is gone, and he looks thoroughly bored. It puts me on edge. Is he really getting bored of us? So soon? Oh god, what could Dan be thinking?

The door eventually opens and he comes in, scoops me up, and takes me to the living room again. He sits me down in the chair without any restraints and gives me another meal. I try not to frown too obviously, hoping not to let him know what I’m thinking.

He sits down opposite me, having finished his own meal, and slouches, resting his head on his folded arms on the table. He’s never positioned himself like that before. After a while, once I’m done eating, he lets out a long, tired sigh. I can’t help but gulp.

“Hey,” he calls. Nervous, I look up at him. He isn’t grinning anymore. “I’m bored. It’s a day early, but I want to switch again.”

I stare at him, not saying a word.

He pushes himself up, steps over to me, and grabs my chin with his hand, forcing me to look up.

“Did you hear me? I want to go back into your body now.”

I gulp again. He stares at me expectantly, so, though I break into a cold sweat, I anxiously nod my head to show him I understand. He scoffs - and that little grin comes back.

“I think your friend is more fun, to be honest. He’s got a little more pride in him, and he’s more fun to break.” He smirks, pleased with himself. “I like the look of him more when he breaks down. And I like you more for being the one to inflict it all. After all,” he mumbles, “you’re a little easier to control.”

Huh?

“You’ve always known,” he tells me with a smile, “since I was inside you, that we would keep swapping over. I don’t intend on letting either of you go.” He straddles me and takes my head into both of his hands. “Why don’t we make this easy, hmm? Let’s do it one more time, and I’ll just slide right into you, okay?” He brings his head closer. “You’ll be so out of it, you’ll hardly feel a thing, and so out of breath you might not choke this time.”

He’s trying to tempt me into this, but we all know that there’s no real choice.

He carefully picks me up and takes us to my bedroom again, strategically locking the door behind him. I’m already scared. I don’t want to feel him inside me again. The sensation of him sliding down my throat, filling me up - it’s horrible. It feels like death. Even the way up - for Dan - is just as unpleasant. But my dislike of it won’t change anything: we’re going to restart the cycle all over again, like the ticks in a clock, forever trapped with our strings in the hands of this Remnant.

Come to think of it, where did the clock in here go?

I’m brought to the bed and placed on his lap, leaning over him with his hands on my hips.

He smiles. “Well, go on,” he encourages. “You like taking control, don’t you?”

I feel like objecting, or at least blushing, but I can’t bring myself to anymore. It’s like I’m naked to him again. I can only accept it, and that’s all I have to do. Yes: I do like it. So I will. How much easier is that? Why did I bother fighting him for so long, when I always knew the outcome? Why should I ever have cared about how he thought of me? I’m not important to him - neither is Dan. To him, we’re just another pair of bodies.

Briefly, I glance to the side, and I see the window. The curtains are drawn back. That feels strange to me. The sunlight bleeds through and hits my face: it feels warm. Why does that seem so special?

Oh, right. The Remnant likes to keep them covered. So why is this one bare?

His hand reaches my cheek and turns me back to him, regaining my attention. So I resume: I lean forwards and take his lips against mine, bringing my arms round his neck. His lips quickly part and, reluctantly, because I fear when he will switch, I do the same, allowing my tongue into his mouth.

Briefly, he pulls away. “Don’t you worry - I’ll save the switch for later. For now,” he lets out a laugh, “you can enjoy yourselves.”

It takes me a while to realise why he worded it like that - for once, he’s not just talking to me. No - there have been other times, I know it. I just didn’t realise them.

He kisses me again and we resume our ‘activity’.

Wait. Does that mean he’s going to  _willingly_  let Dan surface again? Has that been the way all along? I thought it was an accident. That’s what it felt like with me - like the Remnant’s grip weakened and I was allowed some control again. So was that never an accident…?

Why do I care so much? Did I think it was special, like Dan was somehow overpowering this Remnant? How pathetic.

His fingers dig into my hips and pull me forwards, already whining quietly. I pull back and look down.

“Already?” I say, surprised.

I look back up and I see the shyness in his eyes - Dan’s already here. His cheeks are already flushing pink. Was he always this shy?

His hands wrap round my waist and bring me closer, and our crotches press together. I let out a gasp, previously unaware of my own state.

“You too…” he whispers, practically hugging my waist. I won’t deny it.

I slip one of my hands round the back of Dan’s head and pull it slightly away, and, impulsively, I bring my mouth to the now exposed skin of his neck. At the touch, he keens, his legs closing against mine. I kiss him gently, almost lovingly if we could call it that. How weird, now that I think about it: we’ve done so much like this together now. It’s almost normal to think about it. But, before the Remnant, we would never have done such things. How did we ever really get to this point?

“Wait…” he pants, encouraging me away.  _Waiting_ isn’t a concept I’m used to with this Remnant, but I suppose neither of us are him right now, so we can be a little more relaxed with each other. That being said, it still feels like we have some sort of chaperone. I pull back anyway and Dan’s hands slip from my waist to his neck, and he pulls off his shirt. “I want… Can you…” With a face that red, it must be another personal request, like the biting and choking.

Silently, he reaches over to the bedside cabinet, opens one of the drawers, and pulls out a small knife. My first thought is dread: what could he possibly want that for? Am I sure this isn’t the Remnant right now?

He sits in front of me again and brings one of my hands to his, wrapping my fingers round the handle. He looks up at me and smiles - sweetly, unlike the Remnant does. Oh. I see. It’s like the first thing the Remnant did, the thing that started all this new stuff: he wants me to make him bleed again.

With one hand round mine on the knife, his other wraps round my head and brings me into his shoulder. At that, I frown, wondering what exactly he’s doing. Dan presses his lips against my ear.

“This is for the best,” he whispers. His voice sounds strained.

I try to pull back, concerned, but he pulls my hand sharply towards him - and the knife gets embedded in his stomach.

He lets out a pained cry but his hand tightens on my neck. “Don’t stop,” he begs - this must be the real Dan. “Keep going! You have to - ”

Suddenly he’s cut off and his hands move instead to shove me back, and I fall onto my back on the bed - and the knife is still in my hand.

 _“Fuck!”_ he yells, sounding angrier than I’ve ever heard him. I look up at see his hand pressing into the wound, and blood is trickling out of it. “I warned you! Stop meddling!”

His eyes change then: they flash from anger to fear, and I realise that the two of them are fighting.

“Wai - !” Dan cries. Then his face scrunches up and he starts to scream. His whole body tenses like it’s being electrified, and his toes and fingers are twitching. “S-stop! I’ll stop!  _Please!”_

He falls limp, sweating.

His eyes quickly switch back to fury, and the Remnant glares right at me. My blood runs cold in my veins - I can already guess what decision it’s just made.

I jump off the bed and try to run, but when my feet hit the ground the burns sting and I collapse, crying out. I don’t have a choice, though - I have to run!

I scramble back up and bite my tongue as I run, taking the knife with me.

“Stop running!” I hear Dan’s voice bellow through the flat, slamming through every wall. It makes me tremble just to hear, but I persist. I run down the hallway, reaching the front door. My heart is pounding - I don’t know what I’m going to do. “You know you can’t escape!”

I hear his footsteps reach the hallway but I don’t dare look back. I’m reaching out now, ready to grab the door handle -

My feet give out once more and I convulse, smacking my head against the hard floor. For a moment, I’m dazed - and that’s all the time it takes for him to be upon me.

I flip myself over onto my back and a knife comes swinging into my side, shooting pain through my waist, and I squeal. Panicked, I think of what Dan said, and blindly thrust the knife into him again. He chokes, obviously pained, but sadly starts to laugh.

“Oh, Phil,” he taunts, bearing that signature grin. He grabs my left wrist, forces it up above my head, and stabs his knife through the palm. I scream out at the pain - in that time, he takes my right, and the knife, and does exactly the same. Tears sting in my eyes. He chuckles again. “You really should have looked - you barely even scratched me.”

He takes his hands off my wrists and I try to move - but pain skitters through my hands. I turn my head sharply to look at them: knifes, sticking out from my palms. He’s pinned me down.

He straddles my waist, smirking. He barely looks like Dan anymore.

“Mind you, he was pretty smart, wasn’t he?”  _Fuck - monologuing?_ I still try to wriggle, but it gets me nowhere. Still - I can’t just give up.  _I can’t!_  “He was meddling with my work right under my nose! He hid it so well from inside here. I wonder how he did it. Turning off the clocks, opening the curtains. It’s like he’d managed to find a way to toy with  _me_ , instead of the other way round.” He sighs, still laughing. “Ah, but I shouldn’t be surprised. He was a fighter, even from the start. It was seriously hard to tame him. I thought I’d managed it, but maybe he just tricked me.” He smirks to himself. “Clever boy. It’s going to be a shame, losing you like this.” He wraps a hand round the handle of one of the knives and his other grabs my chin. My heart starts pounding. He thrusts my head back, exposing my neck. I feel the veins throbbing, terrified. “But you’re both just too meddlesome now.”

 _“No!”_ I scream, trying to fight against his grip.  _“Please!”_

A final time, he just scoffs, knowing there’s nothing to stop him.

And then he stops.

The hand on my jaw starts to twitch. Then the whole arm.

I open my eyes and see that his whole body is jerking. His eyes are wide with fear, but I can’t tell if it’s Dan’s or the Remnant’s.

The mouth opens wide. And an ear-piercing scream escapes.

 _“No! No! Please!”_ he starts to screech, overwhelmed with pain. His hands reach for his head and start clutching his hair.  _“Stop!”_

And, then, I hear another voice - the one that makes me realise, as impossible as it is, what’s happening.

_“GET OUT!”_

The head falls back and, jaw stretched wide, a thick black cloud is forced out, and it dissolves into the air above us.

With that, Dan’s mouth closes again, and, drained of energy, he collapses over my body.

Adrenaline washes out of me and I suddenly feel woozy. My hands still won’t move. Dan won’t move. I try calling his name but I get no response. I can’t feel him breathing. I start crying, start screaming his name at the top of my voice. He still doesn’t wake up. Maybe I just can’t feel anything.

My vision goes blurry and, exhausted, I seem to black out.

 


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve been around for centuries. I know about the mind, the body, and the soul, and the many ways they can all be broken. I’ve been bored for a long time, and all I want to do is have some fun. I want to wreak havoc, even just a little, and you will help me do it: all I need is a body or two.”
> 
> Summary: The aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with this story! ^_^ I originally began it back five years ago, and finally got round to finishing it, so I hope you enjoyed it.

**WN: strong language, mentions of: hostage/prisoner situation, spiritual possession (see Remnants - Skulduggery Pleasant series), restraint, torture, gore and blood, emotional manipulation, conflicting non-con/smut, threats of death, mutilation, knives; hospital setting, mentions of injuries (burns, stab wounds, mutilation, coma), PTSD**

I wake up a long time later in a pure white room. I barely have any energy in my body, can barely lift my arms, but with the voices murmuring around me I gradually open my eyes.  _Hospital_.

Fragments of memories return to me, broken because of the shock. A neighbour heard our screaming by the front door as they were coming in, and, after the silence worried them too, they knocked, got no reply, and that’s when they saw us lying there through the eye of the door. With one quick phone call to the police we were found and swept away in the back of ambulances, and after an undeterminable amount of time, here we are.

“Seven days,” one of the doctors tells me. “You’ve been in this hospital for seven days now, frequently slipping in and out of consciousness.” I’m lying in the bed, as he tells me this, without moving a muscle. I don’t even take my eyes off him - I can’t find the energy to. He’s holding a clipboard in his hand and is scanning it meticulously, being careful with what he says. “The main injuries you have sustained have been inflicted within the three days before you were brought here. These include…” He stammers, thinking carefully and turning over the page. “Stab wounds to your hands, burns on the soles of your feet, various cuts across the body, and, most oddly, the removal of your appendix.” He looks up at me and frowns. “We wondered whether this one was a mere coincidence of timing, but it seems, with the out-dated technique used, that maybe it was used as some sort of tactic.”

His face grows softer. Looking left, I see the police officer watching us intently.

“We understand this is a sensitive and traumatic situation,” the doctor tells me sadly, “but if there’s anything you can tell us about what happened, anything to help make a profile of the culprit or make sense of your injuries, it would be immensely helpful to everyone.”

I only stare at him.

The officer speaks up. “Would you like us to take up an investigation?”

I feel tears reach my eyes before I can stop them. “No.”

Confusion fills the air. I look away from them.

“I… can’t remember anything.”

I hear the doctor riling through the notes on his clipboard. “Oh,” he cries, trying to keep composed. “We never found any clear damage to the brain, but I suppose it’s possible - ”

“If he says he can’t remember, then it’s not just  _possible_ ,” the officer remarks, making the doctor go quiet.

After a while, it’s just me and the doctor. I’m a little more awake than before and I’ve regained some energy. The doctor tells me it’s because I’m on some anaesthetic at the moment.

“You see, it’s for your hands.” I look down at them. “Try not to move them for now - they’re still healing.” I can’t help but stare at them. “… Mr Lester,” he starts awkwardly. It makes me start to feel nervous. “These wounds… they apparently weren’t as carefully inflicted as the rest of your injuries, and… some of the damage…”

He coughs.

“Your right hand is fine - only a small about of muscle was scratched, and it needs some time to regrow. But your left…” I stare at it, and it suddenly feels like dead weight. “… The knife tore through some of the nerves, so… you seem to have lost most of the feeling in your hand.”

My heart drops.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters with a heavy voice. “We worked to repair the muscles that had been affected, too, but…” Tears well in my eyes. I silently stare down at my hand. “I’m sorry, but we couldn’t restore it completely. Currently, you will lack proper motor function in your hand. With regular physiotherapy sessions, that will improve, but…” He shuffles awkwardly. “Regaining full control does not seem possible.”

I feel the urge to clench my hands into fists in frustration, but the cathartic release I beg for doesn’t appear in my left, and it only makes me sadder.  _Permanence_. The one thing I truly hated of that Remnant. The one thing that terrified me. It’s the one thing that meant forgetting it all wasn’t possible. In a way, he’ll always have a presence in our lives.

 _Our lives_ …

I jump up.

“Dan!” I cry. “What happened to Dan?! Is he okay?!”

The doctor rushes forwards and presses me back down against the bed. “Calm down, okay? You’re still healing.”

My heart races:

_He brings a hand to my chest and pushes me down again._

_“No, keep still. You’re still healing.”_

“ _Dan!_ ” I start to scream, trying to throw the man off me. “ _I have to see him!_ ”

A commotion rises in the room and within a moment a crowd have flooded in, a wave of blue and white, and a random hand holds a mask to my face, with voices telling me to calm down, and I suddenly feel overwhelmingly helpless.

_“Don’t worry - ” He brings a cloth stained with something strongly odorous to my face and I choke as the fumes invade me, “ - I’ll let you sleep through this one.”_

_Why_ , I whine to myself,  _does the world have to be so cruel?_

It’s a while before I wake up again. I hear people mumbling the word  _trauma_  through the walls of this hospital, and I’m not surprised. I’m more relaxed than before, now. They must have given me something. I don’t think I can move. I don’t like that - it makes me feel vulnerable again. I wonder if they know how much worse these precautions of theirs make me feel. I wonder if they’re more for their own sake than mine.

Peej comes to visit me today. He sits by my bed and stays there for a long time, sometimes going out to get snacks or drinks. There’s a lot of silence between us: he would never try to pry me and risk making me feel horrid. In a way, his presence makes me feel awkward, because it feels like so long since I’ve seen anyone other than Dan.

 _Dan_. They never told me about him. I can’t help but worry.

After Peej asks how I’m feeling, and how the wounds are, I ask him about Dan. His face quickly turns sad and he looks away - too slow for me not to see.

“Dan is…” he gulps. “His condition isn’t good. He’s alive, of course - ” I sigh out in great relief. “ - but…” He shuffles awkwardly in his seat. “He isn’t waking up, Phil. He’s been in a coma since they brought you two here.”

I stare at him, thinking. It takes me a while to get my words out: I didn’t talk much before, with the Remnant, and now I can’t seem to grow out of it.

“How long…” I start, quiet, “… has it been?”

Peej still doesn’t look at me. “… Nine days.”  _Nine days_. It doesn’t feel that long. Have I been sleeping for most of that? Days really are short. “He’s surviving, though. He’s breathing on his own and everything. He just… he won't…”

A sob escapes him and he quickly hides it.

I stare at him. I never considered the reactions of the outside world to our predicament. I’d almost forgotten there was a world outside that flat.

A desire grows in me, then. I’ve felt it before. I’ve felt it a lot of times over the last nine years. It has never felt as heavy and bleak as this, though.

“Can I…” Peej’s eyes shift to me. “Can I see him?”

He stares back. “I don’t know. It might be a while before they release you, apparently because of your mental condition.” I notice his hands twisting up in his lap. “Personally, I think seeing him might make you worse.” I want to ask why, but I wonder if he’d refuse to tell me. “I know what you’re like, Phil.” My ears prick up at that. “You’re too sympathetic for your own good. There’s nothing you can do, so don’t lose yourself over him.”

In silence, I turn away, having nothing to say to that.

“I want to see him.”

Peej says nothing to that, too.

He stays by my side for the rest of the day. He has a watch on his wrist that quietly ticks and I beg him to make it stop; he asks me why, but complies anyway, despite not getting an answer.

“I spoke to your doctor on my way back,” he tells me out of the blue. “He says you can’t leave the hospital just yet. But you can go and see him.”

I perk up at that. Peej shows me a little smile.

I’ve given a wheelchair to get myself around for this brief time: the soles of my feet were badly burned, and my hands are too damaged to use crutches. Because of them, too, I can’t wheel myself around, so Peej has to push me. I briefly thank him for sticking with me, because I really do need him. The chair, though, I don’t like sitting in it. I was only in it briefly, but it reminds me more of Dan than myself.

In tense silence, Peej brings me into his room. It’s motionless in here, like within the confines of this room time has been suspended. It’s cold, too. We reach the bed and, with my heart in my throat, I peer over him:

 _Dan_. He looks peaceful. I feel immensely relieved.

His injuries are limited, as far as I can recall. He looks normal, even now. He looks like he’s just sleeping. Like before, like always, I’m comforted by it.

I reach my hand over to him and let it hover. I want to feel him, any of him, to remind myself that he’s here and he’s okay. I want him to feel me and feel safe, too. But Peej’s here. I withdraw my hand.

“Are you okay?” he asks of me, as if not wanting to intrude.

Strangely, tears well in my eyes, and they spill without my permission. Peej starts telling me that it’s okay, that Dan should be okay soon, that he won’t die, but I get him to stop. I’m not crying because I’m sad, as I tell him: I’m happy. Because he’s really okay.

When we were possessed by the Remnant, we had access to his memories like he did ours. So the moment we were conscious, we realised our fate: not a single person that Remnant had taken victim had survived. Once he got bored of them, he started to inflict more serious injuries, having fun with their deaths. Most lasted less than two weeks with him. So hope, for us, seemed lost. We were on an inescapable road to certain, horrible death.

But, somehow, we’re alive. So this… my hand, the wheelchair, Dan in a coma… it’s better than I ever could have wished for.

We stay in this room - my silent request - and Peej never objects. He sits down next to me and I never take my eyes off Dan. I’m soothed by seeing his chest rise and fall, seeing him breathe.

“His injuries are quite complicated,” Dan’s doctor tells us, another time, “in the fact that we can’t quite find the explanation. His feet have been cut, like yours were burnt, and with the police we suspected this to be a tactic used by the attacker to restrict your movements - he, too, has a knife wound to the stomach, except his appendix is still intact.”

As much as I don’t want to hear all this, and be reminded, I want to know that Dan is okay. I want to hear that nothing will be long lasting, that nothing won’t ever heal.

“Actually, he has three separate stab wounds to his abdomen,” the doctor continues, “which is why we’re confused. Most of his injuries were inflicted over two weeks ago, yet these last two - ” he gestures to them “ - and the cut on his wrist, were inflicted around the same times yours were. It seems you weren’t harmed in those initial days, but he was, as though the attacker had been  _taking turns._  Though…” He hesitates, shooting me a nervous look. “Forgive the accusation, but from where you two were found, it seemed possible that  _you_ were the one to inflict those later stab wounds.” I tense up. “Of course, it’s mere speculation.”

I’m asked again if I want an investigation into this, but I decline. There would be no point, anyway.

“He also appears to have been the possible victim of a rape crime.” At that, my heart drops. “You, however, do not. This did also seem to occur during the same time your injuries were being inflicted, rather than his.”

The doctor goes on about our conditions. He even raises the question of possibly multiple attackers, since my knife injuries were inflicted by a dominant left-hand and Dan’s with a dominant right.

“The main confusion we have,” he says, frowning, “is that we cannot find any cause of the coma. It’s as if he’s psychologically too weak to become conscious. So, because of that, we cannot accurately determine when - and if - he will wake up.” I slouch at the news, feeling nervous. Even using the Remnant to figure it out, I can’t. I’ve never known a person to be able to physically eject a Remnant from their body before. Even with such supernatural reasoning, I can’t know if Dan will be okay, and that scares me more than anything natural.

I spent a long time by Dan’s side. Peej’s the one who looks after me whilst I’m here, bringing me food and drink whilst I don’t move from Dan’s bedside. He never moves. He never does anything but breathe. One time, Peej goes home, and with his absence I can’t help but reach my hand to the bed. I lay my hand on Dan’s head and feel his warmth and pulse beneath my fingers. I reach them to his hair and brush it gently back. My heart thumps softly in my chest. I bring my hand down and touch his fingers with my own, suddenly feeling sensitive, and I slip our hands together, interlocking them. I squeeze it gently within my grasp, wanting to let him know that I’m here, that he can safely come back. I smile and stroke my thumb along the back of his hand.

I’m woken by Peej returning in the morning with breakfast. He stares down at us and I realise, sleepily, that our hands are still entwined. He doesn’t say a word and brings me the food, so I let go.

Once done, no one says anything, so I take Dan’s hand in mine again, needing his warmth, needing to grip on in case I lose him.

“Phil,” Peej suddenly calls, keeping his voice low. I don’t respond - we both know I heard him. “Can you really not remember anything?”

I freeze. Before I can answer, he continues.

“It’s just… I don’t blame you if you really can, because what you’ve been through sounds traumatic, and I’d want to forget it too. But…” He lets out a frustrated sigh. “I can’t help but worry, Phil. All this talk of invisible culprits, of ‘turns’, of… of…” He clenches his hands into fists. He’s hysterical. “It makes it sound like it was just  _you two_.”

I grip Dan’s hand tightly. I feel like I’m starting to sweat.

“I mean,  _shit_ , it all points that way and I  _hate it_. I can’t ignore it, but I can’t make sense of it either. Why would you hurt each other, why would you  _swap_ , why… why has  _Dan_ been…” Oddly, he lets out a sudden pained sob. “Please… just tell me I’m wrong. I need to hear you say it.”

Tears well in my eyes.

My voice feels hoarse and dried up, like my body doesn’t want me to speak.

“If I say I can’t remember,” I quietly force out, “if I’m lying, it means I want to forget. You think this doesn’t hurt me?” Angrily, tears fall. I try wiping them away. “You think I’m happy this happened?”

“Well no - ”

“You don’t think, after  _nine years_ , that I don’t want him to die? That I don’t want him to be in pain?” My voice gets louder and more pained as I go on, but I can’t make myself stop. “If I wanted him to suffer, if I wanted him dead, would I be by his bedside right now? Would I be ignoring my own health because all I care about is being next to him until either his first, waking moments or his last?”

The sensation of breaking down starts to consume me and I struggle to get words out.

“I can’t explain to you what happened - you’d never believe me. You’d think I was mad. And I  _really_ don’t want to remember anymore.” I drop my head down. “So  _please_ , stop bringing it up.”

I feel him stare at me for a painfully long and silent time. Then he shuffles in his chair and doesn’t say any words more than “I’m sorry”.

An involuntary sob escapes out of my mouth so I lean forwards and press my head against our enclosed hands, willing myself to sleep again.

It’s a long time of nothing. Peej keeps his eyes on me but spends more and more time away as the days go on. I ask him to bring me the  _Skulduggery Pleasant_  books, which he doesn’t question me on, and I read through them by Dan’s bedside. I share the jokes I love with him, as if he might hear them. When I’m engrossed in the book, I can imagine he’s simply slouching on his bed with his laptop on his chest, ignoring me as he scrolls through Tumblr or watches something on Netflix, or he’s fallen asleep. With that in mind, I don’t take my eyes off the book, to keep the dream alive, and it takes me twice as long to read it.

I reach  _Dark Days_  and read through it with my tongue between my teeth. This is the breakout of the Remnants. People run scared, terrified, and inevitably get possessed. These dark souls have no mercy. One man even begs to be possessed, having loved the first experience and been obsessed with finding it again ever since: I feel sick whilst reading about him.

I read the scene where Valkryie, the protagonist, gets possessed by one herself. It triggers in her  _Darquesse_ , a supressed Id-like personality, and then -

Oh. And then Darquesse forces the Remnant out of her body.

I look up to Dan, inspecting him. Could he really have done a thing like that? Darquesse was incredibly powerful - she even suppressed the Remnant whilst it was inside her. How could a person like Dan do something like that?

 _“He was meddling with my work right under my nose! He hid it so well from inside here. I wonder how he did it. Turning off the clocks, opening the curtains. It’s like he’d managed to find a way to toy with_ me _, instead of the other way round. Ah, but I shouldn’t be surprised. He was a fighter, even from the start. It was seriously hard to tame him. I thought I’d managed it, but maybe he just tricked me.”_

It can’t be true. Dan couldn’t possibly…

And yet, clearly, he did.

I squeeze his hand tightly. He saved us.

The doctors decide to release me, so I stay with Dan at all times now. They bring me a guest’s bed and help me position it next to his. During the nights, I curl up next to him and grip his hand tightly in mine. I want him to know that I’m here, that he can wake up now. I don’t even know if he can know all that, if he can even hear me when I talk.

“You can’t die here,” I tell him, holding the back of his hand against my lips. “Not after what you did. Not after all we’ve been through.” I breathe in deeply. “If I make it out of this and you don’t… I… I won’t forgive you. Living on without you would be worse than death.” Desperately, my other hand reaches out and lightly touches his cheek. He doesn’t move under my touch. I can’t feel him, either. I sweep his fringe away. “So wake up.”

Nothing.

I squeeze his hand tighter. “ _Please_.”

Stillness.

I cry against the pillow until I fall asleep beside him, vowing never to leave his side no matter what happens.

By morning, the doctors are waking me up and rushing me out of the room, so fast I don’t have any way to object or comprehend what’s going on. I sit in the waiting room, my fingers twisting nervously together. I bet he’s deteriorated, slipping away. I want to hope that this is the moment when he wakes up, but he’s shown no signs of improvement over these last three weeks. If he hasn’t been getting any better, then he has probably given up.

Tears well in my eyes and fall down without my permission. I don’t want to lose him.

It’s a long time before I’m allowed to know what’s going on. I fall asleep a few times and have to be woken up. The doctors take me into another room - I’m on crutches now, with huge boots to soften the pressure of walking - and silently sit me down.

“We cannot explain to you exactly what’s happening with Dan’s condition,” they tell me, frowning, “because we don’t yet understand it. But, somehow, it seems like he’s recovering.”

My heart jumps at that, my body beginning to tremble with excitement.

“There appears to be more brain activity than before, and his body is starting to respond to external stimuli. In simple terms, it appears he may soon wake up.”

I can’t help but smile, and tears form in my eyes with the overwhelming revelation.  _Dan… he’s going to be okay._

I’m allowed to stay with him the same as before, but the doctors come in and out more frequently now. They used to only visit a few times a day, checking his responses and reflexes, stretching his limbs, and nourishing him. Now, every couple of hours they seem to be testing him: they check his reflexes as normal, and now start to ask things of him, like “Can you try and open your eyes?”, “Try to squeeze my hand as hard as you can,” and “Can you try and say something - try saying your name.” I don’t know the results, but they keep mumbling numbers to themselves, as if they’re keeping score. All I know is that the numbers seem to be getting higher, whatever that means.

Sometimes the doctors thank me for being by his side - “It can be a great comfort,” they tell me, “and it helps with the recovery.” There’s isn’t a choice, though: I’m no hero for being here. Even if I had to, I could never bring myself to leave. I need to stay this close to him. Maybe that’s selfish of me, of completely selfless, but I can’t tell anymore. All I know is that he’s all I have.

I rarely let go of his hand. I can see the scar on his wrist gradually healing as the days go by. I mutter small things to him, constantly begging for him to wake up.

Usually, when I hold his hand, I curl my fingers round his, letting his rest on top of mine. I don’t entwine our fingers, though - I don’t feel like I have the authority to make such a decision. Though, one day, after a brief nap, I wake to find his fingers between mine. I blush at the sight I pull my fingers away. I guess I was too eager.

The next day, Dan’s breathing starts to get erratic, and I call for the doctors for see him. He seems to be having some trouble getting his breath out - it’s more forceful than normal. It’s not so much from his nose, either, as if he’s forcing the breath out of his closed mouth. I panic and ask the doctors what’s wrong with him. The wideness of their eyes as they press their hands to his chest doesn’t calm me.

“Oh,” one of them mutters under their breath. Their fingers reach up to neck, pressing against the underside of his jaw, and their eyebrows raise this time. “It seems…” they start, but never finish. This time, their hand reaches for Dan’s mouth, opens it slightly, and a tiny squeak escapes it. My heart leaps at the sound.

With that, the doctor closes his mouth again, and takes his hand instead.

“It’s okay,” they say clearly, squeezing his hand. “You can stop now. Well done.”

I frown, my heart racing. They take their hand away and turn to me.

“He was trying to speak.” My eyes widen at that. “He’s improving.”

I can’t help but feel giddy. I take his hand in mine and squeeze it in praise.

“Well done,” I tell him, feeling a subtle urge to cry. He really is getting better.

The day after, I feel the muscles gently twitching in his hand, lightly pulsing against my skin. Each time I feel it, without a word I squeeze back, as if to tell him  _well done, I received it_.

That same day, the doctors tell me his eyes are starting to respond to a light stimulus, and have started to move at other times too.

A few days later, his eyes are open and blinking, struggling slightly still, as if he’s half-conscious. His fingers bend round mine at his own accord, and even if I lay my hand slightly away, he seeks it out. Apparently his score is getting better - around ten now, I believe.

I text Peej the news, and he comes running.

He sits with Dan for a while and talks at him, and Dan just stares back at him, blinking every once in a while, as if he’s gradually falling asleep. At one point, Peej dares to ask “So how are you feeling? Are you okay?”, and to my surprise Dan subtly nods his head. Peej’s wide eyes shoot to me at that, and I can’t help but smile back.

Just a few days more, and we’re allowed to take him home.

He resides in a wheelchair for a short while, since his muscles still aren’t awake enough to use properly enough for walking, but I don’t mind. I use my crutches (that I hardly have to use anymore) and follow along as Peej helps wheel Dan out.

We don’t go home - instead, we stay at my family home, having to thoroughly explain the situation to them. We don’t talk much about exactly what happened to get us here, and my parents don’t ask. We stay in my room and Dan spends most of the first day lying peacefully on my bed. I won’t ever pressure him to move too much, not just yet, but I do have to encourage him to move every once in a while, just to make sure his muscles don’t seize up. Though, to be honest, it’d be like normal again - Dan hardly moves his body anyway.

Oh.  _Normal_. We won’t ever reach that again.  _This_  is our new normal.

That night, I curl up next to Dan in my pyjamas and face him. He lays on his side, too, facing me. But he won’t look at me. The air feels thick. We have a lot we need to talk about.

“Umm…” I start - instantly, my throat starts to seize and dry up. But I can’t just  _not talk_ , as much as I don’t want to. We can’t just not face this. “I… I told everyone that I can’t remember…” Hesitant, I look away from him. Perhaps I shouldn’t remind him. “S-so I don’t know if you want to do the same…” Taking a deep breath in, I make myself look at him again. “Do you… really remember?”

He doesn’t look at me. His face flushes, and he shyly nods his head. My heart aches a little to see that.

I bite my lip, feeling frustration build up inside me. “Dan, I… I’m so sorry. I never wanted anything like this to happen and it’s all my fault.” My fingers clench unconsciously round the bedsheets between us, but I barely notice, because it’s my left. “I never wanted to make you suffer like that. A-and I know you can’t forgive me, because you know what it took to make all that happen, a-and… and…” I let out a tense breath. “And now you know everything. Everything’s been laid out bare. S-so I guess… for sanity’s sake, we should… we have to turn away…”

I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s inevitable. After what we’ve done to each other, how could we ever find a way to stay together? How would we ever look at each other?

It’s a shame, because I really wanted, more than anything, to finally be able to look at him truthfully, uncensored, the way I’ve always dreamed of.

I hear him move and I quickly open my eyes:

“Dan?”

His hand has laid itself on top of my one, and his fingers slip between mine. He squeezes, gently, holding on, then he brings our hands up to his face and lays my palm over his cheek. There, a soft smile grows on his lips. My face burns red.

“A-are you sure?” I gasp, voice trembling. Dan slowly nods his head. “B-but… but we…”

His lips part, and I shut mine straight away.

“Phil…” he says softly, keeping his eyes on mine. Hearing him say my name, after so long, knowing what he does, makes my heart weaken. “It’s okay…” He leans into my hand and smiles brighter. “I'm… happy.”

I can’t help but smile back - well, there are more tears than anything, but I can’t help myself.

Right now, I can’t help but wonder: does this all seem worth it? Getting Dan in the end, the way I could never have dreamed of for years, knowing that if this Remnant hadn’t we never would have got here. Was all that pain and torment worth such an ending? If I’d known all of this before encountering that Remnant, knowing this outcome, knowing what hell we’d be put through, would I have wanted it to happen?

No, there’s no point thinking like that. There’s no  _worth it_ , no justification. It was hell, and all we can do now is be grateful for every good thing that came out of it. What’s done is done, and what happens now just is.

 _All I can do,_ I think, bringing our hands to my mouth and pressing my lips to the back of his hand,  _is be grateful for what I’ve gained_.


End file.
